﻿Having a dazzling perfect smile can drastically change how people perceive you.
It can help you appear genuine and approachable, thereby opening your life and career to better
and new opportunities. Sarver and colleagues have shown that poor dental aesthetics are linked to a
lack of self-confidence which manifests itself as an academic and occupational disadvantage.
Their paper introduces the concepts of a social vs an enjoyment smile. The social smile is the
one you given when meeting a stranger to appear more friendly and likeable. The enjoyment smile
is when you are genuinely pleased and this matters because the enjoyment smile
typically has a higher lip line and exposes more of the gums among other subtle nuances.
The social smile is repeatable and consistent, it’s something we practise in the mirror and
so aesthetic treatment and research of the ideal smile tends to focus on giving you
a pretty social smile as that’s the facial asset you’ll be making the most use of.
The formula for the perfect smile mainly depends on the facial anatomy and structure and so we need
to break down each aspect one by one. * Lips
The lips form the main structure of the smile and the appearance of the lips can either make
a smile seem genuine or make it appear forced. The fullness of the lip along with the shape
and the length of the lips strongly influence the smile aesthetics. -
Recent research has explained the role of lips in the formation of the ideal smile. According
to the researchers, the ideal smile should expose approximately 75 percent of the upper teeth. This
depends on the body and the fullness of the lips. If the lips are big and full-bodied,
exposing much of your teeth can be difficult. And if the lips are thin, then too much of the teeth
can be exposed, resulting in an unpleasant smile. A good rule of thumb for those with thin lips,
smile such that your lower edge of the upper teeth touches the upper edge of the lower lip. While
this example has pretty decent lip vermillion, this would be somewhere between figures F and G.
This way, overexposure of the gums is reduced, although it’s not really upto you,
some people have more hypermobile lips that pull back further naturally
while others have hypomobile ones that do not reveal enough teeth. In general, the lower set of
teeth should not be visible, your upper lip should be doing all the work in an aesthetic smile.
The shape of the lips when smiling is also very important. In general, the lips should be steady
in the middle and curve lightly at the edge. There should be symmetry at the edges and it shouldn’t
take more than 125 milliseconds for the edges to line up when forming a smile. Those with lengthy
smiles that curve around the edges, like Julia Roberts, are perceived to have a more genuine
smile, exposing more teeth which we tend to associate with a more spontaneous enjoyment smile
as explained in the beginning. However it isn’t the most aesthetic smile so there’s a tradeoff. If
the smile is not lengthy and doesn’t curve around the edges, then it is best to refrain from showing
teeth like with, Johnny Depp. This introduces another concept of buccal corridors. When the
upper set of teeth do not utilize the full length of their arch, or if the arch itself is narrow,
then these dark hollow regions form making the smile seem less full. Smile profiles that open
up too much even with a very wide and well formed arch can also suffer from these corridors. In
growing adolescents, Sarver et al’s paper suggests to widen the arch while it’s still pliable
but this flattens out the arc of the upper set of teeth, giving the face a broad, almost flat
faced smile that is much more masculinizing. Lombardi 1973 proposed a golden proportion
of tooth exposure which a broader arch will obviously deviate from by increasing exposure,
especially at the outer ends, but critics have argued that strictly following this one size fits
all proportion limits [smile] creativity. On the plus side, a wider arch can allow for
more room for the teeth to erupt freely, and interestingly enough, a strong link has been
found between maxillary arch formation and tooth eruption with traditional, tougher diets which
we covered here. * Teeth
The color of the teeth is a significant factor. While having clean, unstained teeth is important,
it should match the whiteness of your sclera which is something that is often overlooked.
As we’ve seen time and time again in our Instagram vs Reality series, teeth whitening jobs in
Photoshop look uncanny because they do not match the whiteness of the eyes. Our eyes are actually a
creamy off-white colour and so a natural teeth whitening job isn’t perfectly bright either.
Kershaw and colleagues have shown that discolored teeth have a negative impact
on social perceptions. The differences between white, ideal teeth and decayed, ruined ones
show a significant difference in ratings of social competence and intellectual ability.
Another important factor is the shape of the upper-middle two teeth aka the central
maxillary incisors. A smile may be considered unattractive if these two teeth are skewed,
even if every other component is perfectly aligned. Apart from their structure,
any gap between these two teeth or protrusion of these teeth may make them the focus of your smile.
For instance a buck tooth smile, not a canine tooth smile or a premolar tooth smile.
Although having these central two teeth dominant is necessary for your smile to be perfect,
too much of it can be off-putting. In fact, the ideal height-to-width ratio of these should 70
to 80 percent. In this example, the maxillary incisors were brought down, taking up a larger
portion of the smile window than before, but not so much that it dwarfs the other teeth.
Something very few people might notice are the connections between each teeth.
The gap between each adjacent teeth follows an aesthetic ratio of connector bands, tapering
towards the incisors with increasing connection. Having teeth that are too circular or conical
decreases the available area for connection, leading to uneven gaps appearing between adjacent
teeth. In this case, the gaps were filled in with the appropriate amount of resin.
Lastly, the most common flaw we see in our aesthetic reports are the proclination of
teeth. Maxillary teeth that procline forwards do not form an adequate seal with the lower or
mandibular set of teeth. Having the teeth procline forwards, raises them up higher towards the lip
line, creating a much bigger gap between the two sets of teeth while also obscuring more of the
teeth themselves behind the lip, so they also appear smaller which is another negative.
* Gum Tissue How much of the gum or gingival tissue is visible
during a smile determines if the smile appears gummy or aesthetic. So much so that researchers
suggest a value of 3 millimeters or less of the upper gums should be visible when smiling.
Moreover, the gingiva lining should be visible in an oval or elliptical shape when connecting
to the upper teeth. In this example, the shape of the gingiva is ideal but the lip
contour is uneven and pulls back too sharply at the outer ends. In contrast, the gingiva outline
here is much more uneven and distressed. Another important aspect of the visible gum tissue
is the color and general condition of the gums. They should be pink in color and should not
be blotchy or have black marks. In an attractive smile with an ideal smile curtain and lip profile,
the gums should be mostly hidden, but diseased gingiva can still stain the teeth and be inflamed
which is generally not fun. Thankfully a number of periodontological techniques
can be used to correct even the most severe of cases so it’s not all doom and gloom.
* Facial Midline and Symmetry Facial symmetry is important on just
about anywhere on the face, but even more so for the smile as it’s very noticeable.
The dental midline is one that runs through the central incisors, and it should align with your
facial midline which runs down the center of your face. The issue isn’t necessarily the asymmetry,
but rather what it implies, because asymmetry of your dental midline suggests underlying dental
issues such as failed tooth eruption, canting or excessively proclined teeth. Magne and colleagues
found that people deviate more towards a symmetric smile than a symmetric face, showing that smile
aesthetic is on a league of its own, which is fair because this is a very broad topic.
To solidify all of the points we’ve covered, here is an example of an aesthetic smile. Her lower
set of teeth are not visible as that is a sign of ageing as the lip muscles weaken. Her smile
shows virtually no buccal corridors, with the smile curtain opening up perfectly in line with
her maxillary or upper jaw arch. Her upper lip contour is smooth and very symmetric revealing an
appropriate amount of the incisors, it could be a bit higher and still be aesthetic, but it’s within
range nonetheless. Caucasians have some of the thinnest lip vermillions on average while Africans
have some of the thickest and so the level of gum exposure will be slightly different going
down the scale from largest to smallest lips. Going back to this example, her teeth are white,
without looking unnatural as we see far too often on our Instagram vs reality series and lastly,
gum and gingiva show is minimal. In the canines and premolars where you can see hints of it,
it’s already very clear that they’re in the ideal elliptical shape. It’s also unsurprising that she
has very healthy dentofacial growth elsewhere on her face and is an attractive individual
because your smile aesthetic is intimately linked with your underlying skeletal pattern which
influences your other facial features. Apart from the anatomic components,
dentists and orthodontists have found other equally important factors that can affect the
perception of an ideal smile. These factors are divided into four groups; gingival esthetics,
facial esthetics, macro aesthetics, and mini esthetics which we’ll cover as a future series,
so now is as good a time as any to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
If you would like to get your own smile assessed by our team of dentists and periodontists,
you can order a facial aesthetic reports at the qoves website.