Dear Restoratives & Cosmetics Insider,
It turns out the smiles of stars differ quite a bit from the grins of us regular folk. Photos of smiling celebrities showed numerous deviations from the smiles of Spanish dental students in one recent study.
Celebrity smiles had no tilting of the maxillary midline, showed more teeth, displayed incisal edges parallel to the lower lip, and displayed occlusal and commissural planes parallel to the interpupillary line. Read more about how the findings can help you create more satisfying smiles for patients in our Insider Exclusive.
Also new in the Restoratives & Cosmetics Community, Associate Editor Melissa Busch provides a refresher on tooth whitening. In her coverage of a course at the recent California Dental Association's CDA Presents meeting, Busch detailed the safety and effectiveness of hydrogen peroxide as well as common patient complaints.
Are your patients turning to TikTok for dental advice? The video-sharing social network has become a hotspot for viral, do-it-yourself dental trends, including shaving down teeth with nail files and using strong adhesive bonding glue to accessorize teeth. Dental professionals should be aware of these risky hacks and discuss them with patients, one dentist said.
While many businesses are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, office closures may actually be a boon for cosmetic dentistry. Videoconferencing has pushed more people to notice the flaws in their teeth, leading to a surge in demand for smile makeovers dubbed the "Zoom boom."
Finally, you don't want to miss a couple of articles on how CAD/CAM workflows can help improve patient outcomes. In one article, Assistant Professor Dr. Steven Gold shared how dentists can use CAD/CAM tools to practice more precise dentistry and better save teeth. In another, researchers described their novel use of CAD/CAM technology to bring a smile to a patient with primordial dwarfism.
