Smile Styles
There are several natural shapes of individual teeth and multiple possible combinations of these shapes. To assist in communicating your preferred smile creation, “catalogs” of sample tooth shapes and arrangements have been developed. We use three different ones. These are absolutely critical to helping us understand your vision of a perfect smile. Below is a brief description of each smile selector. We keep copies in our reception area for your leisurely viewing.
My personal favorite is the Lorin Smile Style Guide composed by Lorin Berland of Dallas. I like it for its thoroughness, which addresses nearly all-possible combinations of shape and alignment. The same model’s face is used to demonstrate each option so it is easy to visualize the effect of the teeth on the smile. Multiple photo angles help also. We use these digital smiles for imaging (putting a smile style on a photo of your face) in order to give you a preview of what could possibly be done and how it would look. I’ve seen Lorin lecture and personally expressed my appreciation for this great tool.
The original Smile Guide was published in 1989 by Bill Dorfman of Century City, Ca. He is best known for his work on the “Extreme Makeover” television program. When this came out I kicked myself for not thinking of it first because it so perfectly supplied a need in the emerging field of smile design. I have seen Bill lecture numerous times and this may still be his biggest contribution to my practice. What he did was devise an illustrated guide of variations of possible tooth shapes and alignments. Then he brilliantly matched these theoretical styles with photographs of real live Hollywood models. What I especially like is that patients can see that attractive people have a variety of smile styles. This demonstrates that there is no one “right” smile, just your own personal preference. This classic guide (and the newer 2004 version) still gets everyday use in our office.
Probably the most popular smile communication guide is the Smile Catalog, which was developed by Bill Dickerson of Las Vegas. He founded LVI (Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies), which has trained numerous dentists in advanced cosmetic techniques and these graduates tend to use his Smile Catalog. I have attended several of his lectures, including what may have been his first (20 people in a small room) and subscribed to his newsletter for many years. He has contributed significantly to the analysis of smile beauty and the organization of logical steps to create it. What I like about this catalog is that it is simple and easy to use. Interestingly, rather than assigning numbers to the various styles, he labeled the designs by personality characterizations (aggressive, dominant), age (mature, youthful), or overall impression (Hollywood, natural). The “enhanced” style seems to be the most popular choice.
Come in and see which guide best helps you decide on your preferred smile.
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