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What’s the difference and which do I need?
Social media and the internet are full of airbrushed photos showing perfect smiles. This overexposure to perfection might leave you wondering, how can I get involved and join the perfect smile party?
Well, we can help.
These Instagrammers aren’t generally just blessed with naturally amazing looking teeth. In fact, the majority of them have had some form of treatment from a cosmetic dentist, like ourselves.
Whether it’s aligners or tooth whitening, bonding, or veneers, you’d be surprised at how easily you can perfect your teeth and smile.
Let’s explore the different options.
Tooth Treatments and Techniques
When it comes to cosmetic dentistry, there are lots of different techniques used by the professionals. These can get pretty confusing and overwhelming, especially when you’re confronted with industry-specific buzzwords you don’t understand.
Can you tell your Invisalign aligners from your resin bonding for example? Probably not, but we can.
So, let’s break each of these techniques down for you to make it as simple as possible and guide you on your path to the perfect smile.
Tooth Whitening
Tooth whitening is your simplest approach to achieving a smile perfect for Instagram. The end result of tooth whitening is pretty much explained in the title – it makes your teeth whiter and brighter.
The benefits of tooth whitening are that it’s a quick treatment, it’s cheap, easy and does absolutely zero harm your teeth. However, this is only the case if you get your teeth polished before whitening treatment.
But there are some downsides, for example, most importantly that tooth whitening only lasts for a few years at the most, and some people may also feel tooth sensitivity during the process of whitening.
The tooth whitening process also only whitens your teeth and nothing else. This means that any fillings, crowns, or veneers won’t change colour, and the same goes tea and coffee stains on your teeth.
Our advice is to choose the tray whitening as opposed to laser whitening for your treatment. It’s cheaper, gives a more predictable result, lasts longer and can be ‘topped up’ as the whitening effect fades.
Tooth Bonding
Next up on the tooth treatment ladder is bonding.
The bonding process is simple for a dentist, and involves adding very small tooth coloured fillings to subtly modify the shapes of your teeth to match your requirements.
Bonding can give great results if you need minor changes to the shapes of your teeth, such as repairing a chipped tooth or making canines less pointed.
The fillings used with bonding are made of a composite resin and can blend incredibly well with the colour of your natural tooth, which is a fantastic benefit to using tooth bonding.
However, over time, bonds may pick up stains. This is particularly the case if you enjoy drinking fizzy drinks, tea, coffee, or if you are a smoker.
Bonding and whitening are often used together for a simple smile makeover, but it’s hugely important to make sure you get the whitening done first!
Aligners
Aligners are more complicated as we progress into more technical treatments. They are however a brilliant method for straightening mildly crooked or crowded teeth.
For aligning, you do need to wear a series of thin transparent guards over your teeth for typically 3-6 months. This sounds like a bit of a chore but it’s totally worth it as the results can be absolutely brilliant.
As you might expect, however, there is a downside to aligners in that you have to commit to wearing the aligners for 21-22 hours every day. It’s a big commitment and you must make sure you follow it, as without doing so, the treatment is often unsuccessful.
You’ll also need to continue wearing guards overnight for a number of years to stop the teeth from sliding back into their previous positions, so this one takes some commitment on your part but can give you excellent results.
Veneers
Veneers are a very popular treatment in cosmetic dentistry, and are generally ultrathin strips of porcelain that fit over the front of a tooth to alter the size, shape, or colour.
A good set of veneers can really alter a smile and for the most part, they work best to make small teeth bigger, the result of which is creating a fuller smile.
But that’s not all, veneers can restore your smile for 15 years or more, so they are a long term investment and a very popular treatment.
Some veneers can be fitted without virtually no alteration to the underlying teeth but if your teeth or a tooth is too prominent then it would need to be shaved down first.
Of course, you’re not restricted to just one of the above techniques. In fact, using one or more together is generally the best course of action.
For example, you may choose veneers for your upper teeth but just simple whitening for the lower teeth to achieve the result you require.
Get in Touch with Dovetail
When you start down the road of restoring or enhancing your smile it’s important to find a dentist who understands all of these techniques.
You need somebody to guide and work with you to find a treatment or treatments to will suit your mouth, lips, face shape and personality. At the same time, the treatment needs to provide a long lasting solution that will keep you happy and smiling for many years.
We can carry out all of the above techniques, either on their own or combined to achieve the results you want for that perfect smile.
Give us a call on 0191 261 9911 to book in a free assessment or get in touch here.
