Personalized Smile Design and the concept of Visagism.
The digital concepts, techniques, and materials of aesthetic dentistry aim at building new smiles with minimally invasive approaches and maximum natural appearance. Meanwhile, they also restore effective chewing and phonetics for a better quality of life.
However, the demands of a client and the amount of information available have led us, professionals, to question the planning and customization of treatments as per individual psychological characteristics. When ignored, it leads to dissatisfaction, even when all the aesthetic principles that set norms are incorporated.
Unfortunately, professional feedback often differs from customer expectations, creating an obstacle to accepting the treatment plan. Attempts in developing a dental plan following client requirements and expectations can conflict with the standard aesthetic conceptions of beauty.
By creating a smile design, we build a “perception design” by which we try to satisfy the aesthetics of customer perception. The concept of “visagism” helps us create restorations that meet the aesthetic requirements and the characteristic psychological needs that influence emotions, identity, behavior, and trust.
Visagism in aesthetic dentistry is associated with evaluating facial type, which involves subjective judgment, a time-consuming personality test, and complex calculations of tooth configuration. Today, we have software such as the DSD app that eliminates subjective judgment, automates all calculations, and visualizes the final result – the optimal tooth configuration. By marking the landmarks in a picture of the face with a full smile, the software analyzes the structure of it and selects the tooth shapes like rectangular, triangular, circular, or square for strong, dynamic, sensitive, or calm temperament, respectively.
The smile test drive serves as a motivator and communicator to demonstrate the achievable and predictable clinical outcome. Client preferences in terms of color, texture, and shape are critical at this point. By making them co-authors of their smile, they quickly get involved in their smile project and bring a whole new dimension to the concept of perception.
Today’s aesthetic software combine the principles of Visagism with built-in algorithms that help us provide a smile design that affects customer emotions, sense of identity, behavior, and self-esteem. The combination of modern digital technologies with traditional treatment concepts is used to achieve predictable aesthetic outcomes.
In short, a well-designed smile is a reflection of the customer’s individuality and temperament, with facial features guiding the custom smile design.
