How a Trial Smile Works

Why Wear It First

Photos of somebody else's veneers say very little about how veneers would look on you. Even a well-made digital design on a screen is a flat picture. Put that shape in your mouth and it changes: your lips drape over it, your cheeks lift, and you hear how you sound with it there.

A trial smile exists for exactly that reason. It moves the plan off the monitor and into the place it will actually live, so you can judge it for yourself before anything permanent is done. With porcelain veneers, where shaping enamel can't be reversed, no tooth is prepared until you've worn the design and given it your approval.

Making the Mock-Up

1. Records. Photographs, a few seconds of video while you talk and laugh, and a scan of both jaws on our iTero scanner, without putty trays.
2. Design. New tooth outlines are drawn on screen over pictures of your face, sized to suit your lips and features instead of coming from a stock set of shapes.
3. Shell. From that design, a see-through shell is produced that slips over your teeth.
4. Mock-up. The shell is filled with tooth-coloured temporary resin and seated gently. Within a few minutes the resin has set; the shell comes away and leaves the new outlines in place.
5. Removal. Once you've seen enough, it peels off, and your teeth are just as they were.

Allow around ninety minutes for the whole design visit, most of it spent looking and talking rather than having anything done. If you'd like a partner or friend to give an opinion, bring them along for the final part.

What to Check While You Wear It

• Length with lips relaxed. Let your lips rest. How much tooth can you see? Too little can look older; too much can look artificial.
• Smile line. Give a big smile. Do the edges of your upper teeth follow the curve of your bottom lip?
• Shape and character. Square shapes come across as bolder, rounded ones as softer. Are the two sides symmetrical enough for your taste?
• Speech. Count aloud from 60 to 70 and say a few words full of F and S sounds. Longer front teeth can catch on the lower lip.
• Photographs. Take them face on, from either side and from a few feet back, ideally near a window.
• Instinct. Does it look like an improved version of you, or like somebody else?

Asking for Changes

You'll never have a cheaper moment to change your mind, so make the most of it. Ask for shorter edges, softer corners, a tooth brought forward or a narrower smile overall. Each change is an edit to a computer file, not to your teeth. If the alterations are substantial, a second mock-up can be made for another look.

Sign it off and it becomes the reference for every later step. With porcelain, it decides how much each tooth is shaped, which keeps reduction small, and the laboratory technician builds the veneers to match. For composite, your dentist works from it while sculpting each tooth by hand. The finished teeth follow the approved shapes, although porcelain and polished composite will look more lifelike than the temporary resin did.

When You'll Be Offered One

Always: for porcelain veneers, ahead of any enamel being touched, and for makeovers that mix aligners, whitening, bonding, veneers or implants, so the destination is clear before the first step.

Usually: larger bonding cases, composite veneers included.

Rarely needed: whitening, since shape stays put and only colour moves; one chipped edge, which is simply built up on the tooth at the bonding appointment; and Invisalign, where a 3D simulation of the planned movement does much the same job. Your dentist will say at the consultation whether your case needs one, and the smile makeover page shows how it fits into a full plan.

Is There a Charge?

Not on top of your treatment. You'll see two items on our fee list, a smile design from £250 and a trial smile from £250, but go ahead with treatment and both fold into its cost. The consultation is free, with a £20 deposit to book that's returned within seven days of your appointment.

You go home with a written plan showing which teeth will change, the order of treatment and a fixed fee, and there's no deadline for deciding. As a guide, porcelain veneers start at £695 a tooth and composite bonding is £395 a tooth. Fuller totals are in our guide to veneer costs in Lanark.

What It Can't Show You

A trial smile is excellent for judging shape, length and proportion, but less reliable for colour and finish. Next to porcelain, which has real depth to it, temporary resin looks flat and slightly chalky. Shade is decided on a different occasion, by daylight and against your own teeth, after any whitening has finished.

Because it sits on top of teeth that haven't been prepared, the mock-up can look and feel slightly fuller than the finished veneers will. Nor can it predict how your teeth will look after Invisalign, or where the gum line will sit after contouring. Those steps come first, and the design is confirmed again afterwards. Treat it as a dress rehearsal rather than the opening night.

There's one further limit. The mock-up stays on by friction alone, so it can't tell you how the teeth will feel to bite and chew with over several weeks. Proper bite testing comes later, first while you wear temporaries and then on fitting day, when the new edges are fine-tuned to meet comfortably.

Questions

This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.