How To Embrace Your Smile’s Perfect Imperfections

Many of us are obsessed with taking the perfect selfie, with reality TV and Hollywood stars setting the standards for flawlessness. There’s a lot of self-improvement to be done, but can you actually achieve perfection? There are a thousand ways to achieve perfection, because everyone has a different definition of it.

There’s no such thing as ‘the perfect smile’, there are many elements that you need to consider before you make any permanent changes to your smile.

• Colour
• Symmetry
• Balance
• Facial harmony
• Shape

If you address these five elements you can achieve your definition of a really beautiful smile. Some will prefer to focus on colour rather than symmetry, and some will prefer to concentrate on their facial harmony. We get beautiful smiles in all shapes and sizes because everyone has their own unique perfect imperfections, and that includes celebrities!

Let’s take a look at some famous smiles

Kate Moss

One of the world’s most recognisable supermodels, Kate Moss is more famous for her cheekbones than her smile, but it’s still perfectly imperfect!

She’s got symmetry in her upper dominant front teeth that show through at the edges when she pouts. There’s also a slight variation in her two side teeth, but the upper gum levels are symmetrical. The incisor edges suit the shape of her mouth well, and her teeth follow the line of the lower lip. There are clearly marked transitions between the teeth so you can really notice the straight teeth edges.

 

 

Alessandra Ambrosio

Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio has modelled for Victoria’s Secret since 2005, and has become known for making her mark on the runway and in print.

When we examine her smile (pre veneers), we can see that she had two symmetrical dominant front teeth. Although she had a slight variation in her gums, the edges were balanced and had a healthy pink colour. Her teeth follow the curve of her lip, giving her a nice streamlined smile. We liked her natural, clean white teeth.

 

Mind the Gap! Choose Oral Health Over Trends

Models like Vanessa Paradis and Georgia May Jagger have used their quirks to their advantage and helped us to embrace difference with their iconic gaps between the two front teeth. This is called Diastema and doesn’t always demonstrate good oral health.

If you have a gap between your two front teeth you need to make sure you brush between them even more thoroughly. If the gap is big enough it should be easy to see any plaque or food build up. If you have small gaps between two or more teeth, this could mean that food gets trapped between them on a consistent basis. This can become the cause of tooth decay and gum disease over time.

As much as you might want that coveted gap between your teeth, it can cause more problems than it solves.

The Veneers Trend

Dental veneers are tooth-coloured shells, custom-made to fit permanently over your natural teeth. They’re made from porcelain or composite, and are very slim and fine but extremely strong once they’ve bonded with your teeth. They’re a little bit like false nails, eyelashes or hair extensions and they provide a quick fix for uneven or discoloured teeth, but they’re a serious commitment and a choice you make for a long time. Sometimes veneers need to be changed after ten years, but they can last even longer than that, so they’re clearly not a trend that you can follow for a little while until you change your mind.

Would you rather have healthy, strong teeth for life, or have unhealthy teeth shaved down and covered up, forcing you to maintain veneers for life? Veneers will give the wearer that typical, perfect Hollywood smile, so you need to want a look that can appear unnatural and fake to some. If your teeth can be straightened and whitened, it’s a much better option to go down than to choose a permanent cover-up solution that will damage your teeth like veneers.

Even if there is a trend for flawless Hollywood smiles, for the sake of your long term oral health you should embrace the fact that no two smiles are the same. It’s better to embrace your uniqueness and look for natural ways to improve aspects of your smile, rather than go for a quick fix that looks unnaturally perfect.

Have you considered invisible aligners to achieve your definition of a beautiful smile? Maybe you’re not that far from your own perfect smile, give our free e-consultation a go to find out 🙂