Cosmetic Dental Services

Cosmetic Dental Makeovers

At Beacon Hill Dental Associates, our goal of cosmetic dentistry is to give you a beautiful smile! Dr. Stephen Cohen achieves this by first analyzing every aspect of your smile, then recommending a course of treatment for the correction of any problems identified. Beacon Hill Dental Associates has cosmetic dental procedures to address any of these problems, so even if you weren’t born with a beautiful smile, you can still have one!

What is a beautiful smile? Beautiful smiles have several things in common
, most notably: straight teeth, evenly spaced teeth with no gaps, white teeth without stains, the top teeth show when you smile but not the gums, the gum line is smooth, and the edges of the top teeth smoothly follow the curve of the lower lip. Many of these elements are very subtle, but all together they make up what the human eye defines as "beautiful."

Once Dr. Cohen determines the “style” of the desired smile, he will take an impression of your existing teeth. That impression is sent to a lab with precise instructions of what the smile should look like. The lab then creates a “wax up” a wax model of how the enhanced smile or repaired teeth will look. Dr. Cohen will have you review the wax up and either make changes or give the lab approval to proceed. From there, the lab creates the patient’s new “teeth”, typically a combination of veneers, crowns, inlays and onlays made of porcelain to achieve all the little elements that combine to make a beautiful smile.

Once the wax up is approved, Dr. Cohen prepares your teeth, takes a new impression, and fits you with a temporary version of the new smile. Approximately one month later when the porcelain restorations are ready, the temporary smile is removed and the porcelain is permanently bonded to the teeth.

Tooth Whitening and Tooth Bleaching

Dental bleaching, also known as tooth whitening, is a common procedure in general dentistry but most especially in the field of cosmetic dentistry. Teeth tend to yellow, stain and become duller with age. This aging of the teeth is due to the mineral structure of the tooth, as the enamel becomes less porous. Teeth can also become stained by food pigments, coffee, tea and tobacco. Certain antibiotic medications (like tetracycline) can also cause teeth stains or a reduction in the brilliance of the enamel.

According to the FDA, tooth whitening restores natural tooth color, while tooth bleaching whitens beyond the natural color. There are many methods to whiten teeth, such as brushing, bleaching strips, bleaching pen, bleaching gel, laser bleaching, and natural bleaching. Traditionally, at-home whiteners use overnight trays containing a carbamide peroxide gel which reacts with water to form hydrogen peroxide. Carbamide peroxide has about a third of the strength of hydrogen peroxide. Over the counter kits can be purchased in grocery and drug stores, and whiten teeth with small strips that go over them. The peroxide oxidizing agent penetrates the porosities in the rod-like crystal structure of enamel and bleaches stain deposits in the dentin. Power bleaching uses light energy to accelerate the process of bleaching in a dental office. The effects of bleaching can last for several months, but may vary depending on your lifestyle and dental hygiene habits. Dentures can also be whitened with special denture cleaners.

Cosmetic Dental Bonding and Dental Veneers

Cosmetic dental bonding is a procedure that utilizes a composite resin (which is also used for cosmetic dental veneers) and is used for a variety of structural as well as for enhancing a beautiful smile. Dental bonding materials are similar in usage to a sculptor’s clay, and can rebuild what was once there. By using dental composite resin bonding, Dr. Cohen can restore chipped or broken teeth, fill in gaps and reshape or recolor your smile.

Cosmetic dental bonding material is a composite resin filling placed in the back teeth as well as the front teeth. Composites are the solution for restoring decayed teeth, making cosmetic dental improvements and even changing the color of your teeth or the reshaping them. Dental bonding will lighten stains, close up minor gaps and can be used to correct crooked teeth. Basically, dental bonding will cover any natural flaws by applying a thin coating of a plastic material on the front surface of your teeth. After this, Dr. Cohen will apply a bonding material and sculpt, color and shape it to provide a pleasing result. A high-intensity light then hardens the plastic, and the surface is finely polished.

Dr. Cohen will apply a very mild etching solution to your teeth to create very small crevices in the tooth’s enamel structure. These small crevices provide a slightly rough surface permitting a durable resin to bond materials to your teeth. The resin is then placed on your tooth and high-intensity light cures the resins onto your tooth’s surface -- with each individual layer of resin hardening in just minutes. When the last coat has been applied to your tooth, Dr. Cohen will then sculpt the bonded material to fit your tooth.

The resin from cosmetic dentistry veneers comes in many shades so that Dr. Cohen can match it to your natural teeth. Due to the layers involved, this procedure will take slightly longer than traditional silver fillings do, because multiple layers of the bonding material are applied. Typically, dental bonding takes one to two hours depending on your individual case.