If you are unhappy with your aged appearance, you might be considering a facelift to help rejuvenate your face. But in many ways, cosmetic dentistry is a better way to achieve a more youthful appearance.
Here is why a smile makeover might be a better choice than a facelift.
A Facelift Does Not Address Your Smile
When you are looking at your appearance in the mirror, you might focus on features such as wrinkles or sagging jowls and turkey neck, but your smile is also a key giveaway that makes people think you are older than you are.
Tooth discoloration is a key indicator of age. For some people, teeth whitening can help with this, but for others more extensive treatments, such as veneers or crowns, are necessary.
But it’s not just the color of your teeth that can make you look older, it is the length. When we are young, our teeth are long, but as we get older, they can get worn down. Habits like chewing on things other than food or grinding your teeth can wear them down even faster. As your teeth get shorter, they make you look older.
A Smile Makeover Targets Wrinkles and Folds
Although a facelift does not improve your smile, a smile makeover can actually improve some of the things you might think only a facelift can solve.
Our teeth and skin develop together when we are in our teens and young adulthood. They are proportioned to fit with one another. But as teeth get worn down, the lower third of the face can actually shrink, while the skin remains the same. This forces the skin to fold or hang down, creating wrinkles and folds around the mouth, jowls, and turkey neck, among other common signs of aging.
When we rebuild your smile as part of a smile makeover, we can restore the youthful proportions of your face. With a better match between your skin and jaws, you will see a reduction in these symptoms that many people think they need a facelift to treat.
A Smile Makeover Can Look More Natural
Plastic surgery recognizes the same basic problem we talked about above: you have too much skin for your facial structure. But plastic surgery solves the problem differently. Instead of restoring your facial structure, it cuts away the “excess” skin. And stretches the remainder tight over your face.
The problem is: that is not really excess skin. So it is not surprising that the result of a facelift will not necessarily make you look younger. It might make you look different.
Why Get Surgery If You Can Avoid It?
And, of course, a facelift has the drawback that it is surgery. Surgery comes with many inherent drawbacks: discomfort, downtime, risk of complications, scars, and more. Not only that, but with a facelift, your final results may not be visible for a year or more!
But by the time you would just be recovering from the swelling and bruising of surgery, you could be enjoying the results of your smile makeover.
Do you want to learn more about what makes a smile makeover a better approach to facial rejuvenation? Please contact St. Louis cosmetic dentist Dr. Chris Hill for an appointment at our downtown (314) 678-7876 or Clayton office (314) 678-7876.
