A "perfect" smile may not be a natural-looking smile.

There are only a few treatment approaches that give a dentist as much control over the final cosmetic outcome of a patient's case in the same way that placing a set of porcelain veneers does. However, depending on how what choices are made, that control may prove to be a liability.

What gives the dentist this control is the fact that with a set of porcelain veneers the dentist (in collaboration with their dental laboratory technician) is given free reign to design all facets of that portion of each tooth that is visible to others (within the constraints dictated by the patient initial conditions such as their occlusion ["bite"] and tooth positioning). The variables they control include a tooth's color, color uniformity and transparency. They can also, to a great degree, control tooth size, shape and apparent alignment.

A perfect smile may not be a natural-looking smile.

One of the problems associated with having this great amount of control is that with many cases a dentist can accomplish creating the "perfect" smile. However, others often perceive teeth with "cookie cutter" perfection as being artificial.

This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Who hasn't taken a second look, for closer scrutiny and confirmation, at the older man whose hair has been dyed too dark? Or the person whose face has been "lifted" to a point where it is too taught? Or the younger woman whose body is too perfect, too the point of being comically super-proportioned? Yes, "perfection" can look out of place and unnatural.

When it comes to teeth, the same thing can happen. Everybody can probably think of an acquaintance whose teeth are just too white or just too uniform in appearance. It's clearly a signal that they've had some type of dental treatment. And in the case where the teeth are both too white and too uniform, you can anticipated that the treatment they have had is likely porcelain veneers.

Maybe the "perfect" smile really isn't the change you are seeking.

So, our point with this discussion is just this. The fact that a disadvantage of several of the alternatives to having a set of porcelain veneers placed is that there isn't total control over the final appearance of each and every tooth may not be such a negative, if having a natural looking smile is important to you.

Dentists call the tiny imperfections found in most peoples' smiles "characterization." Natural looking smiles often contain teeth that have just the faintest color blemish here or the slightest tooth tilt there. And in order to mimic nature, dentists typically try to include some of these types of characterizations in the restorations they make. So to break up the sameness that each tooth would otherwise display. That's what makes a smile look natural, as opposed to looking like a set of "Chiclets" (the term dentist's often use to describe a perfectly uniform set of teeth).

So if you're considering having a set of porcelain veneers placed, ask your dentist what their plans are for "characterizing" them. Or, if you're considering one of the alternatives to veneers and find out that there are certain imperfections that it will not be able to address, evaluate these shortcomings. Take into consideration that your smile will look most natural if it does include some type of small characterizing imperfections.