It isn’t enough just to make your smile prettier; successful cosmetic dentistry also means protecting your natural teeth and gums to ensure your beautiful smile lasts for life. With tooth bonding and contouring, you can enjoy the best of both worlds—a significantly improved smile and the preservation of your healthy, natural smile’s tooth structure. Bonding and contouring are minimally invasive cosmetic touchups that can have dramatic effects on your smile’s appearance. They can also be part of a larger smile makeover plan to help you avoid more extensive treatments.
What is bonding material made of?
Tooth bonding describes the use of tooth-colored composite resin to improve a blemished area of a tooth, such as a severe stain, chipped edge, or crack in its surface. The composite resin is the same material used to create tooth-colored fillings, which help treat cavities while retaining the healthy appearance of teeth. Not only is the resin tinted to match your tooth’s color; it also bonds securely to your tooth structure so your touchup will endure the pressures of biting and chewing every day.
Will contouring damage my tooth?
Tooth contouring is the delicate process of reshaping a tooth’s outer layer so that it conforms to the contour of your smile. Gently smoothing a jagged or overlapping edge, or bringing a tooth that seems to large in line with those around it, doesn’t require significant tooth alteration. In fact, the procedure is completed by sculpting the outer layers of tooth enamel that surround the tooth’s main structure.
What are the benefits of bonding and contouring?
The beautiful, lifelike results of bonding and contouring are among their main advantages, but the most significant benefit is that they can serve as more conservative options to other cosmetic treatments. For instance, porcelain veneers require altering a larger amount of tooth structure (albeit still a small amount), and a dental crown requires that the entire tooth be sculpted to accommodate it.