In the art world, minimalism was a movement that emerged in the 1950s. The artwork included sculptures and paintings that used single techniques to create or imply shapes and objects. Some people have applied this approach to decorating. Some people would argue that Apple computers have used a minimalist approach in its advertising and packaging for its products. In cosmetic dentistry, there is a minimalist approach to improving smiles, too. They are called Lumineers, and if you live in or near the Triangle, you can get them at any Sunrise Dental location. What Lumineers Are Lumineers are the thinnest veneers on the market today. Veneers are a kind of cover that can be bonded to your teeth to transform their appearance. Some people have compared this to putting new siding onto a house. The house itself remains in place, but siding can alter the appearance of the house in dramatic ways. Veneers can do something similar for your teeth. Here are some of the ways veneers may be able to help you: ► Your teeth can look straighter. If have crooked teeth, your smile may not look the way you want it to look. You may have considered orthodontic care because you don’t like your smile. You also may have decided that the time commitment to complete this treatment (two years or more in some cases) is not worth it. What if you could fix the aesthetics of your smile in a matter of weeks instead of a matter of years? This isn’t a hypothetical question. With veneers, getting a new smile is possible in just a few visits to our office. ► You can fix the spacing issues with your teeth. Our teeth don’t always come in the way we would like. You may have a small jaw. This can cause your teeth to appear crowded. Some may turn sideways just to fit inside your mouth. In other cases, your teeth may have been fine … until your wisdom teeth came in. Wisdom teeth can push into your existing teeth to create alignment problems where there weren’t any issues before. Other people have extra space between their teeth. These gaps may make you self-conscious when meeting new people or when smiling for photos. Veneers can be used to make your teeth appear parallel to one another and perfectly spaced inside your mouth. ► You can have a brighter smile. Professional teeth whitening is a fast and effective way to remove stains from your teeth. However, teeth whitening may have little or no effect on teeth that turned colors due to medical issues or from the medicines prescribed to treat some medical problems. Veneers can make your teeth as white as you would like them to be. It’s up to you if you would prefer a smile that is a little whiter than your natural teeth or one that is dazzlingly white. ► You can correct a combination of problems. Let’s say you have all of the issues we have listed above. Veneers can fix each problem at the same. You can have the kind of smile that you have seen in celebrity magazines, on televisions shows, and on the big screen at the movies. (There’s a good chance many of the people you’ve seen in those images have veneers, too.) How Lumineers Are Different Than Other Veneers Before we continue, we want to reiterate that Lumineers can do all the things we mentioned above. The difference is how the veneers are attached to your teeth. With porcelain veneers, we will need to remove a portion of your teeth in most cases. Specifically, we will need to remove a section of enamel from the front of your teeth. Then we make an impression of your teeth. By doing this, we create space for your veneers to be bonded in place without changing your profile. Each set of veneers is custom-made to fit your teeth. Many patients require no preparation in order to receive Lumineers. We clean your teeth before making an impression of them. Lumineers are so thin, that they will have hardly any effect on your profile. They can be bonded to the front of your teeth, which also means they can be removed years from now if you decide to pursue another treatment. A Smile That Shines Lumineers derives it’s name from luminescence, which is a measure of the light emitted from an object. Lumineers can give you a smile that will light up a room. To see the results for yourself, schedule a consultation with an of our dentists in Durham, Raleigh, Cary, or Chapel Hill.