Smile design
You see the smile on a screen before anything is touched.
Digital smile design means the shape, length and colour of your new teeth are designed against your own face first, shown to you, adjusted until you agree, and only then made. Nothing irreversible happens while you are still deciding.
A real case treated at 3A Dental Clinic, shown with consent.
The options, in order of how much they change
Not everyone needs veneers.
A good smile plan starts with the least invasive thing that will do the job. Sometimes that is a cleaning and a whitening. Sometimes it is eight ceramic units. The honest answer depends on what is actually wrong.
Cleaning and whitening
A large share of people who ask about veneers are actually describing stain. Removing deposits and then lightening the shade changes a great deal and removes nothing from the tooth.
Whitening works on stain in the enamel. It does not change the colour of crowns, fillings or teeth darkened from the inside, and that gets explained before you start rather than after.
Reshaping and bonding
Chipped edges, a tooth slightly shorter than its neighbour, a small gap. Tooth-coloured composite added and shaped in the chair, often in a single appointment, and reversible in a way veneers are not.
Best for small corrections. It picks up stain over years and is refreshed rather than replaced.
Veneers and ceramic crowns
Thin ceramic shells bonded to the front of the teeth, or full crowns where a tooth is already heavily restored. This is what rebuilds worn, fractured or badly discoloured front teeth properly.
Tooth structure is removed, so this is a considered decision. You see the design first.
There is a fourth option that gets left out of most smile-design conversations: moving the teeth instead of covering them. Where crowding or a gap is the real problem, clear aligners often give a better result than ceramic, and remove nothing from the tooth. We will tell you when that is the case.
Digital smile design
Designed against your face, not against a catalogue.
A smile that suits somebody else will look wrong on you. The proportions have to answer to your lip line, your face shape and how much tooth actually shows when you speak.
Photographs and a scan are taken first. The proposed shape, length and shade are then designed digitally and laid over your own photograph, so you are looking at your face rather than at an example of somebody else’s.
You change what you do not like at that stage. Longer, shorter, squarer, softer, whiter, less white. Only once you agree does anything get made, and the finished units are tried in and shown to you before they are cemented.
- Photographs and digital scan
- Design laid over your own face
- You adjust until you agree
- Try-in before anything is cemented
Getting a first opinion
Three photographs are enough to start
Teeth together from the front, and the same from each side, with the lips pulled back. Taken on your phone in daylight.
You will get an honest answer about what would actually improve the smile, which of the options above suits your case, and roughly what the sequence would look like.
Weddings
Six weeks is usually enough. Six days is not.
Brides, grooms and their families are the most time-pressured patients this clinic sees, and the pressure is what causes bad decisions.
With six to twelve weeks, there is room to do this properly: clean first, see what the teeth actually look like underneath, design, make, try in, adjust, and have you wearing the finished result comfortably for a few weeks before any photographs are taken.
With two weeks, the options narrow sharply and we will say so rather than rush something you will be looking at in photographs for the rest of your life.
If the wedding is close, message with the date first. We will tell you what is achievable in the time, including when the answer is a cleaning and a whitening rather than a full redesign.
A fractured front tooth, matched back in
Shade taken in daylight against the neighbouring teeth rather than under the chair light, which is why it is hard to pick out.
Why a prosthodontist
Front teeth are the hardest thing in dentistry to get right.
A back tooth has to chew. A front tooth has to chew and look like it grew there, next to a neighbour that did.
Prosthodontics is the specialty that deals with rebuilding teeth, and three of its years are spent on exactly this problem: proportion, translucency, how light behaves at the edge of a tooth, and how a ceramic unit meets the gum so it does not look like a fingernail.
It is also the specialty that thinks about the bite. A beautiful set of front teeth built onto an uncontrolled bite will chip, and the patient will be told they are unlucky. Usually they were not.
Dr. Amaey A. Parekh, MDS Prosthodontist and Implantologist.
What it costs
Veneers, crowns and whitening, priced per tooth.
Most people need fewer veneers than they expect. You will be told honestly how many your smile needs.
E.max veneer
₹10,000 to 12,000per tooth
Thin pressed-ceramic veneer, designed against your face before it is made.
Smile designZirconia crown
₹10,000 to 12,000per tooth
Metal-free, strong and tooth-coloured, shade-matched to the teeth beside it.
Crowns and smile designTeeth whitening
₹10,000
Professional whitening, supervised by a dentist so the enamel and gums are protected.
Smile designConsultation and check-up
₹500
Includes the X-ray. You leave with a written plan and the full cost before any treatment starts.
Book a consultationSmile questions
What people ask before they commit.
Will my teeth have to be filed down?
For veneers, a thin layer of enamel is reduced so the ceramic sits flush rather than bulky. For crowns, more is removed because the tooth is usually already heavily filled. For whitening, reshaping and bonding, nothing is removed. Which of those applies to you is decided at the consultation, and you are told before anything starts.
How many teeth do I actually need done?
Fewer than most people expect. What matters is how many teeth show when you smile, which is often six on top and sometimes four. Doing more than that because it is offered as a package is how smiles end up looking uniform and artificial.
Will they look fake?
Only if they are designed to. Shade, translucency and slight irregularity are all choices. If you want visibly bright and even, that is achievable. If you want teeth nobody notices, that is the harder job and the one this clinic prefers.
How long do veneers last?
Well-made ceramic bonded to healthy tooth and protected from a damaging bite lasts many years. What shortens that is grinding at night, biting nails or opening things with your front teeth, and gum disease underneath. All three are addressed as part of the plan rather than afterwards.
Does whitening damage the teeth?
Professionally supervised whitening at correct concentrations does not damage enamel. Sensitivity for a day or two afterwards is common and settles. Repeated unsupervised use of strong over-the-counter products is a different matter.
What does it cost?
E.max veneers are ₹10,000 to ₹12,000 per tooth, zirconia crowns are ₹10,000 to ₹12,000 per tooth, and professional whitening is ₹10,000. Your total depends on how many teeth need work and whether gum or bite treatment is needed first, so you get a written estimate once we have seen your teeth.
Can this be done in one visit?
Small bonding corrections often can. Ceramic work cannot, because it is made in a laboratory and tried in before it is fixed. A typical smile design runs across three to four appointments over two to three weeks.
Straighten instead of cover
Where crowding is the real problem, aligners often beat ceramic.
See alignersGums frame the smile
Uneven gum levels and a gummy smile are treated before the teeth are designed.
See gum careReal results
Clinical photographs of work done in this clinic, with consent.
See the galleryTalk to us first
Send us your problem before you send us a booking.
Tell us what is bothering you on WhatsApp. If you already have an X-ray or an OPG, send a photo of it. You will get an honest answer from a dentist, not a call centre, and you will know what you are walking into before you sit in the chair.