Over the years I have answered the same handful of questions about smile makeovers many times — in the chair, at talks, and in the occasional interview. The questions are good ones, and the answers are rarely as simple as people expect, so it is worth setting a few of them down properly. What follows is how I tend to explain them.
Can an overbite be corrected with braces on the lower teeth alone?
Usually not. When you straighten crowded lower teeth, you are spacing them out along a slightly wider arc than they started on — the arch effectively gets a little larger. If the upper teeth are left untouched, the two no longer meet the way they should, and the bite is left compromised rather than improved.
You would feel that as discomfort, and the teeth would make contact prematurely when you close. There are narrow situations where trimming the lower teeth can create space without widening the arch, but I would not lead with that. The bite is one system; in most cases it has to be planned as a whole rather than half at a time.
It is worth adding that an overbite is one of the issues clear aligners are often well suited to. For many patients, Invisalign is a comfortable way to move the teeth where they need to go.
How do you keep veneers from looking fake?
This is the question I care about most, because a smile that announces itself as dental work has missed the point. The eye is quick to catch anything unnatural — teeth that are too bulky, set at the wrong angle, too uniform in colour, or rounded off where they should not be.
The way we avoid that is by reading the natural teeth and enhancing what is already there, rather than imposing a shape on them. We look at the whole set of parameters — length, colour, angle, contour, and where the gum line sits. Often we will move teeth into a better position before placing any veneers, because a tooth that starts in the right place needs far less reshaping. Less preparation, a more natural result. That sequencing is usually what separates a veneer that looks like a tooth from one that looks like a veneer.
A smile that announces itself as dental work has missed the point.
What goes into the cost of a makeover?
I am not going to quote a figure here, because an honest one does not exist in the abstract. A makeover might be a single whitening course or a coordinated plan across several teeth, and those are not remotely the same thing. The cost follows the case — the number of teeth involved, the materials, the complexity, and how many steps are genuinely needed.
What I can promise is that the conversation about cost comes after the assessment, not before it. Once we understand what your teeth actually need, we can talk about a plan and what it involves. Anyone quoting you a smile makeover price before they have looked properly is selling, not diagnosing.
Do veneers hurt?
For most people, not much. The work is on the outer surface of the tooth, away from the nerve, and the gums and teeth are numbed beforehand, so there is little to feel during the procedure itself.
If the dentist’s chair makes you anxious, you are in very ordinary company, and it is worth saying so before we start. There are gentle options for nervous patients — from inhaled sedation to deeper sedation for those who would rather be comfortably asleep through it. None of that is unusual, and none of it is something to be embarrassed about.
A closing thought
Most of what I do is less about the final veneer than about the thinking in front of it — the diagnosis, the order of treatment, the restraint to do less where less will do. A good makeover should look like nothing was done to it at all.
If you have a question I have not covered here, the right place to put it is across a consultation table. Our SmileUp Veneers programme begins with exactly that kind of conversation. Arrange a consultation and we will give you a considered, honest answer rather than a sales pitch.
