What is Smile Design?

A beautiful smile is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of facial aesthetics. To achieve this beautiful smile, our teeth, gums, lips, and facial shape should harmonize with each other. In modern dentistry, the concept of smile design, often referred to as “Hollywood smile,” has gained increasing importance. But what exactly is smile design?

Smile design is a treatment method that aims to strengthen teeth with excessive substance loss, correct misalignments in teeth, restore teeth with shape irregularities to their appropriate anatomical forms, and close gaps between teeth (diastemas) to achieve an aesthetic appearance.

In smile design, a single material is not used exclusively. The treatment is performed using various materials based on the patient’s aesthetic expectations, the necessity of tooth preparation, and the amount of tooth preparation required to achieve aesthetics. The most popular materials used today are zirconium and e.max. In some cases, smile design can also be accomplished without any tooth preparation using composite materials in a treatment known as bonding.

There are certain principles to follow in order to achieve a beautiful smile:

• Selecting a tooth color that suits the patient’s face.
• Aligning the incisal edges of the upper teeth with the contour of the lower lip.
• Adjusting the size and shape of the teeth proportionally to the patient’s facial shape.
• Proper alignment of gum levels when the patient smiles (designing according to anatomical forms called zenith points).
• Healthy gum color and achieving color harmony between the teeth and the gum line.
• Designing appropriate tooth contours.
• Achieving symmetry in the midline.

To achieve all these factors, modern smile designs involve the use of materials such as e.max crowns, zirconium crowns, laminate veneers, and composite bonding. These treatments aim to restore the lost aesthetic smile for the patient.