Front Teeth Veneers in Harmony With the Face

Hello, I'm Park Jonguk, director of Dream Dental Clinic.

When discussing the esthetics of front teeth veneers,

there are several important factors to consider.

One of them is harmony with the face as a whole.

A shade that matches the skin tone, a tooth size proportioned to the face,

the degree of protrusion or retraction,

and how well the teeth go with the lips when smiling —

there are various criteria to consider.

One of them is the tilt of the tooth axis.

You have to check how the tooth axis harmonizes with the face as a whole,

and plan whether to correct it or leave it as is.

Most people aren't aware that their tooth axis doesn't align with their facial reference lines.

It's often only when a close-up, full-smile photo is taken from the front

that they realize this for the first time.

In such cases, we discuss with the patient whether to leave the tooth axis as is

or set a new axis, and decide together.

Here's a case like that.

Looking at the whole face together with the teeth,

you can see that the teeth are quite tilted.

The lower teeth are tilted in the same way.

In this case, the reference for the facial axis

is the vertical line perpendicular to the line connecting both pupils.

If you look only at a photo of the teeth,

it might seem like this is how they should look, but in reality it looks like the photo below.

Compared with just the lower teeth, there's no apparent problem,

but when you look at the whole face, they are clearly tilted,

so a thorough discussion of which reference to align to is extremely important.

For this patient, the upper and lower teeth weren't often visible together,

and since a lot of the teeth showed when she smiled,

she wanted the tooth axis corrected based on the pupil line.

This process can be addressed through orthodontic treatment,

or it can be addressed with front teeth veneers.

Orthodontics has the downside of taking a long time,

but the advantage of causing no damage to the teeth,

while veneers have the advantage of finishing quickly and improving both tooth color and shape,

but the downside of requiring tooth reduction.

In this case, to improve the excessive translucency and color of the teeth,

we decided to go with front teeth veneers.

We assess the amount of tooth reduction needed

and, to preview the result in advance,

carry out a precision wax-up diagnosis.

The tooth axis couldn't be fully corrected,

so after discussion, we agreed to improve it to a reasonable degree

without resorting to excessive tooth reduction,

and proceeded with veneer treatment on that basis.

The hallmark of veneer treatment at Dream Dental Clinic in this kind of process

is keeping tooth reduction to a minimum

while still creating natural, beautiful teeth.

Please see the link below for more on this.

We reduced the teeth according to the plan.

Only one front tooth and one canine required reduction,

and the rest were treated with no-prep veneers.

Rotating the tooth axis further would have required more aggressive reduction,

so we proceeded with an approach aimed at achieving the best result with minimal reduction.

Using temporary teeth,

we consult with the patient on how the tooth axis will change.

Once the patient is satisfied with the chosen tooth axis,

we take an impression and move into fabricating the ceramic veneers.

The veneer treatment has been completed.

Because the teeth had been overly translucent,

they had actually looked darker than they should,

but they were fabricated to look bright and clear,

while still retaining a natural sense of dimensionality,

and a touch of translucency was added to emphasize a natural look.

The texture of the tooth surface as well

was fabricated to resemble natural teeth.

Comparing the facial photos before and after treatment,

you can see just how important the tooth axis is.

When smiling, the tooth axis now naturally harmonizes with the lips,

and you can see the line of the teeth following the natural curve of the lower lip.

Natural beauty

Since 2006, Dream Dental Clinic