It’s normal to think about ways to enhance your appearance and impressions. However, negative self-worth and lack of self-esteem can be detrimental to your life as a whole.

While some aspects of your physical appearance may not be under your control, some factors are.

For instance, your smile. It determines how people see you, which, in turn, affects how they behave or interact with you.

How Can A Smile Affect Your Life?

According to a study by the American Psychology Association, your smile affects how people perceive you – especially in terms of attractiveness, health, friendliness, self-confidence, and trustworthiness.

So, a smile can affect your social interactions, make or break your first impression, and the way people remember you. Something with such a significant impact on your life shouldn’t go neglected now, should it?

Having an aesthetic and pleasing smile can boost your impression as well as your self-esteem. After all, your smile does affect your self-perception and personality.

The question is: what affects the aesthetics of your smile and overall face?

In terms of facial structure, two significant features affect the aesthetics of your smile and teeth: Lip Positioning and Gingival Display.

Let’s talk about how each of these plays a role in determining how aesthetic your smile is.

How Lip Positioning Affects Your Aesthetics

Lip position is the shape of your mouth. It is often affected by whether your upper and lower teeth are aligned with each other or not.

When the upper teeth overlap the lower, it is called retrusion – and when your lower teeth overlap the upper teeth, it is called protrusion.

Lip positioning affects the attractiveness of your smile a great deal. While aesthetically pleasing smiles have an emotional impact on human perception quite a lot in general, standards of attractiveness vary among cultures and demographics.

For example, in a study of most favoured Iranian facial profiles, average lips were preferred for men, whereas slight retrusion was preferred for women. Meanwhile, this study suggests that people prefer regular lip positions for both males and females.

However, what these studies have in common is that participants rated the extreme protrusion and retrusion (up to 4mm) to be least attractive.

If you have protrusion or retrusion and you’re looking to improve your dental features, it is a good idea to consult your dentist and do a bit of research on which type of lip position you think is ideal for you.

The most common solutions can involve braces and tooth removal.

How Gingival Display Affects Your Aesthetics

Another dental feature that may affect the aesthetics of your smile is Gingival Display – in other words, a gummy smile. How much of your gums are visible when you smile?

Imagine there’s a beautiful model in front of you, and you are in awe of that model’s facial features and expressions until they smile. You find their gums are the exact size of their teeth -the flesh above their teeth is prominently visible and unsettling.

Aren’t huge gums a turnoff? This Japanese study shows that people rated smiles with -1 mm to 0 mm gingival display to be most attractive. Meanwhile, another study says the gingival display of 0 to 1 mm is considered the most beautiful.

What is interesting is that some people associate a bit of gingival display with youthfulness. That being said, a gingival display above 2 mm is still considered unattractive by most people.

Gingival display or a gummy smile can be genetic sometimes, in which case, there’s not much you can do about it. But a lot of times, it can be treated and prevented.

One of the solutions for a gummy smile is gingivectomy.

That can be invasive, uncomfortable, and have a lot of post-op consequences. However, you don’t have to go to such extremes – you can try Invisalign.

How Can Invisalign Improve Your Smile?

Most of the alignment and straightening treatments involve braces, where your teeth are clad with metallic wires to alter their growth and shape of your teeth; some can even require surgery.

Braces can be incredibly uncomfortable, and they make you look weird and feel awful. Braces can kill your smile and affect your image negatively.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if you had something that worked the same way as braces but stayed invisible?

You have that option now.

Invisaligns are custom-fitted aligners that are transparent, therefore, invisible. You can put them on and take them off by yourself, without help from your dentist.

Invisalign can solve several dental problems such as overbite, underbite, crossbite, and other malocclusions that may affect your lip position. Invisalign can also help prevent and treat gingival display or gummy smile.

Book your Invisalign now or contact Orchard Scotts Dental: Clear Aligner Centre.

You can visit us at #07-01, Liat Towers, 541 Orchard Road, Singapore 23881, or you can call us at +65 6732 9939.