Your teeth play many roles — most importantly they help you eat and speak, but they also can help or hinder you when trying to make social connections and gain confidence. By getting a smile makeover you can give your whole face a revamp. Dr. Gordon Chee is a cosmetic dentist at Aesthetic Dental Studio in Calgary. Although his practice does perform general dentistry, their focus is on the smile makeover. “A lot of people are in businesses where they have to deal with a lot of people and their appearance is important to them,” Chee says. “A lot of people are embarrassed to smile in photos or they look in the mirror and they don’t like what they see. Self-esteem is a big factor in why they want to fix their smile.”

Each smile makeover is individualized. Although it varies from practice to practice, the first step in the process is a free-of-charge consultation. Chee emphasizes the importance of researching your dentist and making sure that this is the right procedure for your aesthetic and functional needs. Chee will discuss with the patient what they want as the end result and take a number of pictures to analyse together. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For some, their smile is really imperfect but they are happy with their smile,” Chee says. “Some people come in and their smile isn’t really that bad, but it bothers the heck out of them.” A one-hour teeth whitening procedure may be all that is needed. For others, porcelain veneers are required to create a white, straight and even smile. The gum line can be recontoured using lasers to correct a gummy smile, and replacing your metal fillings with porcelain ones is another option.

It is quite common for people to only want veneers on their top teeth since most smiles only expose them. If this is the case, Chee will simply bleach the lower teeth for the patient. Chee will also take a depression of the patient’s teeth so the lab can create a wax figure of what their teeth will look like. If the patient is satisfied, they will come in for another appointment to prep their teeth for veneers. The veneers are ready within two to three weeks. The final step is to bond the veneers onto the teeth. In total the procedure takes about five weeks or less, if you skip the bleaching of your bottom teeth.

Chee says he sees a real improvement in confidence when the patients return for a follow-up appointment after their smile makeover is complete. “I have one patient who comes to mind, who never really smiled, really timid, kind of hunched over all the time,” Chee says. “I saw her a month later and when she came in she,  had a big smile, she was standing up nice and straight and talking a lot more — very confident. It’s nice to see that.” •