Lumineers and Porcelain Veneers Explained:

	•	A lumineer is a very thin porcelain veneer where where very little tooth structureneeds to be "prepared" and the end of the veneer is right at the natural tooth's edge.
	•	LUMINEER is a brand name for this "thinner" veneer made and developed by DenMat Corporation in Santa Maria, California (see materials, products and services).
	•	With this type of veneer you are biting and functioning on your own tooth structure, including the cutting edges of your teeth
	•	The only limitation for placing these types of veneers is the case has to be quite ideal for the teeth to match up with this procedure
	•	Definitely NO SHOTS or ANESTHETIC needed for this procedure
	•	A regular PORCELAIN VENEER has a little more tooth structure removed, including a small amount of the biting edge as well as some of the back of the tooth. This still can be done without anesthetic in most cases.
	•	We can achieve VERY EXCELLENT RESULTS for crowded or crooked teeth with porcelain veneers because we can create the illusion of VERY STRAIGHT by removng a little of the enamel when a tooth is rotated or jutting out.
	•	This still MAY NOT need ANESTHETIC, it depends on each INDIVIDUAL patient(we did a patient on June 6th who had tooth structure removed WITHOUT anesthetic)
	•	MOST OF THE REALLY STRIKING RESULTS SEEN HAVE SLIGHT TOOTH PREPARED AND PORCELAIN VENEERS

Smile Line:
The "image" that shows the entire front teeth and back teeth going to the first half of the molar. The smile line can include the "gumline" of the tooth or only part of the top half of the tooth, depending on the person. Check your smile line now.

Emergence contour:
This is the way the 1/3 of your tooth that you see every day, also called the "crown" of the tooth, comes out of the gum tissue and into the mouth. Emergence contour tell the dentist which way the tooth root is angled and what makes it crooked or rotated in the "line up". The aesthetic dentist uses teh emergence contour to help you figure out the best "look" for your smile image.

Smile Image:
What you think of your own smile. Sometimes it is very realistic, sometimes it is unrealistic depending on what factors are involved in how you think about your smile when you look at yourself. Sometimes you are looking at the teeth AND lips. Some people look only at the teeth. Some people look at the whole face. SO THE SMILE IMAGE IS SUBJECTIVE. And very important for the dentist to listen to.

Tooth Shape:
This is the actual full shape of what you see in general when you look at your tooth. The shape categories are square,square tapering, tapered, ovoid, tubular, and square tapering ovoid. That's a lot of thinking, isn't it? Then there's also dwarfed and deformed teeth. Well, with aesthetic thinking, we can change reality of tooth shape into an optical illusion to match your idea of what your tooth shape should be. This can get very close to what your ideal of the shape should be, which translates into.............................happiness!

Line Angle:
The point on the 'face" of the tooth (looking RIGHT AT IT head on) where the two dimension of the tooth becomes the three dimension of the tooth by taking a turn towards the next tooth from either side. Line angles are a really important because they determine how light reflects off a tooth. How much light "bounces around" off the tooth determines how "bright" your smile looks to the person looking at you. Therefore, line angles are pretty important.

Skin Grin:
Unfortunately for some people, more gum tissue shows when they smile than tooth structure. This ends up minimizing the look of the smile and maximizing someone noticing only "pink". Fortunately, an artistic clinician is able to transform the "skin grin" into a gorgeous smile WITHOUT so much pink showing in a few different ways.