Cosmetic Dentistry

What makes a cosmetic dentist?

All dentists claim to do cosmetic dentistry, and some are very good, but a trained cosmetic dentist has the special skills and training to understand what makes a truly aesthetic smile.

When you study a persons smile what is the first thing you notice, do you notice if everything looks perfect? Or do you notice imperfections that appear to become more noticeable the longer you look. This is what a trained cosmetic dentist is looking for, are there black triangles between the teeth?, do the teeth have a natural translucency to them?. Do they sparkle, can the natural internal effects be made in the new teeth to make them look truly natural.

There is no restriction currently to stop a dentist claiming to be a cosmetic dentist, and a lot of very good dentists make a claim to be cosmetic dentists. They think that because they can make a crown which seems to match the rest of the teeth, they are able to face the challenge of all the appearance concerns of patients.

Unfortunately training to do cosmetic dentistry requires a lot of extra time, study, money and commitment.

Some of the differences that a cosmetic dentist will consider are discussed below.

• A cosmetic dentist always has a sense of how the end result will look, and aims to make it an art form that blends in with the face and cannot be distinguished from natural teeth. A lot of dentists cannot always appreciate the subtle differences that make truly cosmetic smiles such an art form.
• Cosmetic dentists consider how the patient views the work, and understands that if the patient is not truly happy with the end result then they consider this a failure. Cosmetic dentistry often involves “thinking outside the box”, whereas a general dentist may consider that the teeth look fine and that there is nothing wrong with them. Looking at the negative aspects of treatment rather than the enhanced smile and improved appearance.
• As cosmetic dentists we are not there to just fix teeth when they go wrong, we look to create beauty from teeth, and are trained to have great attention to detail.
• The whole concept of “smile design” is to be artistic and to have a perception of how things should look. They understand how teeth should be shaped and the subtle details of alignment of shapes, and sizes and colours.
• The subtleties of tooth shade and colour are recognised by cosmetic dentists, they will have specialised equipment for shade taking, and understand how teeth reflect light, and how this will affect the end shade. This is something that must be learnt, and a lot of dentists do not always have the appreciation of these subtle differences in tooth shape or shade.

The difficulty is how can you tell if a dentist has cosmetic training?, this is a difficult question and is open to interpretation.

Make your own judgement, but visit our dental centre and we are confident that you will believe us when we say we can provide you with cosmetic dentistry which you will be proud of, and our commitment is or studying for our masters degrees in advanced restorative cosmetic dentistry.