The Trial Smile Explained

Why a Preview Matters

Looking at before-and-after photos of someone else's veneers tells you almost nothing about how they'd suit you. Even a well-made digital design is only a picture on a screen. The moment those same shapes are in your mouth, everything shifts: your lips drape over them, your cheeks move, and you hear your own voice with them in place.

A trial smile exists to close that gap. It lifts the plan off the monitor and puts it where it will actually sit, so you can judge it in the mirror before anything irreversible happens. With porcelain veneers, where enamel that's been shaped can't be put back, your dentist won't touch a tooth until the design has been worn and approved by you.

Making the Mock-Up

1. Records. Photographs, a short video of you talking and laughing naturally, and an iTero Lumina scan of the upper and lower teeth. There's no impression putty involved.
2. Design. The proposed tooth shapes are drawn digitally over images of your face, so their length and width are set by your lips and features rather than a stock template.
3. Mould. From the design we make a clear mould that fits snugly over your teeth.
4. Mock-up. Tooth-coloured temporary material goes into the mould, which is seated gently over your teeth. A few minutes later it has set, the mould lifts away, and the new shapes are sitting on your own teeth.
5. Removal. Once you've seen enough, the mock-up peels off and your teeth are precisely as they were before.

Allow roughly ninety minutes for the design appointment. Most of it is spent studying the result and talking it through rather than having treatment. Bringing a partner or friend for the final part is welcome.

What to Check in the Mirror

• Tooth show at rest. Let your lips relax. How much of the teeth is visible? Too little looks older than you are; too much looks artificial.
• Smile curve. Give a wide smile. Do the edges of the upper teeth trace the line of your lower lip?
• Shape and personality. Square corners read as stronger, rounded ones as gentler. Do the left and right sides match closely enough for your liking?
• Talking. Count aloud from 60 to 70 and try some words with F and S sounds. Longer front teeth sometimes catch on the lower lip.
• Photographs. Front view, both profiles, and a shot from a few feet back, preferably next to a window.
• Instinct. Does the reflection look like you on a good day, or like a stranger?

Asking for Changes

This is the cheapest moment you will ever have to change your mind, so use it. Want the edges a little shorter, the corners rounded, one tooth brought forward or the whole arch made narrower? Each request is a change to a digital file, not to a tooth. Where the changes are substantial, we can produce a second mock-up so you can look again.

Your approved design then becomes the blueprint for everything that follows. For porcelain, it dictates how much of each tooth is shaped, which is what keeps reduction minimal, and the technician builds the veneers to match it. For composite, Dr Sharma works from it as a guide while sculpting each tooth freehand. The final teeth will follow the shapes you approved, although porcelain and polished composite have far more life in them than the temporary resin.

Which Treatments Get One

Always: porcelain veneers, before a single tooth is prepared, and smile makeovers that bring together whitening, aligners, bonding, implants or veneers, so that the end result the plan is aiming for can be seen from the outset.

Usually: larger composite bonding cases and composite veneers.

Rarely: whitening, since shape stays the same; a single chipped corner, which gets rebuilt straight onto the tooth during the bonding visit; and Invisalign, because a 3D simulation of how the teeth will move does the same job. At the consultation, Dr Sharma will tell you whether one is needed in your case. Our smile makeover page shows how it slots into a complete plan.

The Cost

There's no additional charge. Our fee list shows the smile design from £250 and, separately, the trial smile from £250, but both are absorbed into the cost of your treatment when you proceed. The consultation is free; it's held with a £40 deposit, refunded within seven days of attending.

You'll go home with a written plan listing which teeth are involved, the sequence of treatment and a fixed price, and there's no pressure to decide quickly. As a guide, porcelain veneers start from £695 per tooth and composite bonding is £395 per tooth. Fuller totals are in the Broughty Ferry veneers cost guide.

What It Can't Show You

Shape, length and proportion are what a trial smile does well. Colour and surface finish are where it falls short. The temporary resin is duller and less translucent than porcelain, with its glass-like depth, and the final shade is selected separately, in daylight and against your own teeth once any whitening is complete.

Since the mock-up is layered over teeth that haven't been prepared, it may look and feel slightly bulkier than the finished veneers will. It is also unable to show how the teeth will look once Invisalign has finished, or where contouring will leave the gum line. Those stages happen first, and the design is then re-confirmed once they're complete. It's a dress rehearsal rather than the performance itself.

There's one further limitation. Friction alone holds the mock-up in place, so it can't tell you how the new teeth will feel when biting and chewing over a period of weeks. The bite is assessed properly with the temporaries and once more at the fitting, when fine adjustments ensure the new edges come together comfortably.

Questions

This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.