Can Porcelain Veneers Make My Smile Look Wider?

I have always been self-conscious about my smile. My teeth themselves aren’t terrible, but when I smile, it seems like you can only see a few of them. There are dark spaces at the sides of my smile that make it look narrow. I’ve been looking at before-and-after photos of porcelain veneers and noticed that some people seem to have much wider smiles afterward. Can veneers actually make a smile look wider, or is that just the angle of the photos?

Melissa

Dear Melissa,

Yes, porcelain veneers can sometimes be used to create the appearance of a wider smile. What you are describing sounds like what dentists call the buccal corridor. This is the dark space that can appear between the teeth and the corners of your mouth when you smile.

Everyone has some degree of a buccal corridor, and having one is not inherently unattractive. However, when that dark space is prominent, it can make the visible portion of the smile seem narrow.

This is one of the reasons a true smile makeover involves much more than simply making the front teeth whiter. It can change the entire character of your smile.

Designing Your Dream Smile

First, it is important that you see an expert cosmetic dentist. This is an advanced procedure and there are way too many cosmetic dentistry horror stories. Here are just a few of the things a skilled cosmetic dentist will look at before designing your smile:

• The width and length of the teeth
• The proportions between neighboring teeth
• How many teeth show when you smile?
• How much of each tooth shows
• The shape of your lips
• Your facial proportions
• How much of your gumline shows when you smile
• The transition from the front teeth toward the back of the smile

Porcelain veneers can change the shape, size, character, and color of your teeth. By carefully designing the teeth farther toward the sides of your smile, a cosmetic dentist may be able to reduce the amount of darkness that shows in the buccal corridor.

Simply making your teeth wider is not the solution. Poorly designed veneers can look bulky or unnatural. The individual teeth still need to have the right proportions and look completely natural. It also needs to match with the shape and character of your face.

The number of porcelain veneers you need, depends on your smile. Inexperienced cosmetic dentists tend to suggest six porcelain veneers, but most smiles tend to be eight to ten teeth wide. In that case, if you only do six, the other teeth will not match and your smile will end up looking fake.

It is important that you chose your dentist carefully. The best cosmetic dentists are AACD accredited. It’s even better if they are FAACD. Whichever dentist you end up using, make sure they first do provisional veneers where you get a mockup of your smile. Then when the permanent veneers are done, you should get a temporary try-in where you can see them in several different types of lighting. If you aren’t thrilled with the results, then he or she should send them back to make any adjustments you request.

Veneers Aren’t the Answer to Every Narrow Smile

There are situations where the narrowness of a smile is related more to tooth position or the dental arch than to tooth shape. In those cases, orthodontic treatment may be worth considering.

That is why I would not walk into a dental office saying, “I need ten veneers.” Instead, explain what bothers you about your smile and what you hope the finished smile will look like.

Then let a highly trained cosmetic dentist determine the best way to accomplish that.

Your observation about those before-and-after photographs was a good one. The smiles may genuinely look wider afterward. The trick is accomplishing that while still making the teeth look as though nature put them there.

This blog is brought to you by a top-rated Cincinnati cosmetic dentist, Dr. Fred Peck.