In short: cosmetic dentistry changes how your teeth look — their colour, shape, length, alignment and the way they frame your smile. At Abhinav Dental Care it is led by Dr. Abhinav Shrivastava MDS, who plans each case digitally before any tooth is touched, so you see the intended result first.
Smile designing: planning before drilling
The mistake in cosmetic dentistry is treating teeth one at a time. A smile is a composition — the width of the front teeth relative to each other, where the edges sit against the lower lip, how much gum shows when you smile broadly, whether the midline between your front teeth lines up with the middle of your face.
Smile designing means photographing and measuring all of that first, then working backwards to decide what each tooth needs. You see and approve the plan before treatment starts. On irreversible cases, this step is not optional in our clinic.
What we can change
Discoloured teeth
Surface staining from tea, coffee, tobacco and paan responds to professional cleaning and whitening. Deeper intrinsic discolouration — from tetracycline, fluorosis or a single dead tooth after an injury — usually needs veneers or internal bleaching instead. Which one you have determines the treatment, and it takes an examination to tell.
Chipped, worn or uneven edges
Small chips are rebuilt in a single visit with composite bonding: tooth-coloured resin sculpted onto the tooth, shaped and polished. It is inexpensive, painless and reversible. Larger fractures or heavily worn front teeth generally need veneers or crowns.
Gaps between teeth
A midline gap can be closed with composite bonding, with veneers, or moved closed with orthodontics. Bonding is fastest and cheapest; orthodontics moves the actual teeth and is often the more sensible long-term answer, particularly for larger gaps. We will tell you which we would choose and why.
A gummy smile
When a lot of gum shows above the teeth, the teeth can look short even though they are a normal length. Laser gum contouring reshapes the gum line precisely and heals quickly. Where the cause is the jaw rather than the gum, that has to be addressed differently, and we will say so.
Crooked teeth
Braces or aligners move the actual teeth into place. Veneers can mask mild crowding by changing the front surface. Moving teeth is almost always the healthier option because it removes no tooth structure — but it takes months rather than weeks.
Missing teeth
Implants, bridges or partial dentures, depending on the site and the bone. See our implants page for the detail.
Veneers, explained honestly
A veneer is a thin shell of ceramic bonded to the front of a tooth, changing its colour, shape and alignment at once. Done well, veneers look outstanding and last well over a decade.
What you should understand before agreeing to them: most conventional veneers require a small amount of enamel to be removed from the front of the tooth, and that is permanent. Once a tooth is prepared for a veneer it will need a veneer or a crown for the rest of its life. That is a reasonable trade for a genuinely improved result — it is not a reasonable trade for a problem that whitening or aligners would have solved.
We will always tell you when a less invasive option would get you most of the way there. If a dentist proposes eight veneers without first discussing whitening and orthodontics, get a second opinion.
Composite bonding versus ceramic veneers
- Composite bonding: done in one visit, no laboratory, usually little or no tooth removal, easily repaired. It stains over time and typically needs replacing after several years.
- Ceramic veneers: two visits, made in a laboratory, highly stain-resistant, better light behaviour and translucency, longer lasting. More expensive, and requires tooth preparation.
For a single chipped corner, bonding is usually the right call. For a full front-teeth makeover intended to last, ceramic generally is.
How a typical smile makeover runs
- Consultation. What specifically bothers you about your smile — in your own words, not a menu of treatments.
- Records. Photographs, digital X-rays, impressions or a scan. Gum health and decay are assessed first: cosmetic work goes on top of a healthy mouth, never instead of one.
- Design and preview. The proposed result is worked up and shown to you.
- Groundwork. Any decay, gum treatment or orthodontics happens before the cosmetic phase.
- Treatment. Whitening, bonding, veneers or crowns as planned.
- Review. Bite check and polish, and a night guard if you grind — grinding is the fastest way to destroy new ceramic work.
Keeping the result
- Ceramic does not stain, but the natural teeth beside it will — so heavy tea, coffee, tobacco and paan will slowly break the match.
- Never use your teeth to open packets, bite thread or crack shells.
- Wear a night guard if you grind or clench.
- Brush and floss normally, including the margins where veneer meets tooth. Decay can still start there.
- Keep six-monthly check-ups so margins are inspected before a problem becomes a replacement.
Cosmetic dentistry in Jabalpur
Smile designing, veneers, composite bonding, laser gum contouring and whitening are all carried out at our Madan Mahal clinic. Come in with photographs of what you like if you have them — it is far more useful than describing it, and it makes the conversation about what is realistically achievable much more concrete.