You may not have realized this, but teeth are not meant to touch. It sounds odd, but think about it. They don't touch while you speak, smile or rest. Even when you chew, your teeth only have to be close enough to mash food, not necessarily touch.
Ideally, the edges of the upper front teeth should parallel the top of the lower lip. If the upper teeth are too long, the patient will show too much gum tissue when they smile. If they are too short, they won't show enough enamel when they smile and they will look prematurely old or toothless.
Front teeth that do not touch, or anterior open bites, are a fairly common problem in Orthodontics. There are many underlying causes, from muscular imbalances, skeletal growth problems, finger habits, and tongue habits.
When you're biting into something or chewing it's normal for your teeth to touch at some point. The front teeth when biting down or the back teeth when chewing. This is how your teeth actually cut through the food you're eating when your bite is correct.
In an ideal smile line, the edges of your upper teeth should be parallel to your lower lip when you smile. The bottom of your lower lip should have the same line as the gums of your lower jaw. This should always be a standard, regardless of the size or shape of your smile.
Formulating the Perfect Smile
The upper and lower lip should both be symmetrical, and their centres should meet at the midline of the face. All teeth should be straight. The top teeth should be dominant; while smiling, little to nothing of the bottom teeth should be shown.
To be considered conventionally attractive, your smile should have the same midline (vertical line that splits the face perfectly in half) as your face. If your smile's midline isn't directly between your two central front teeth, it might look unattractive.
Resting teeth means they are sitting dormant and it also means they're not interacting with anything else like food, your tongue, or each other. The standard resting position has the teeth not touching each other; when the mouth is closed the teeth are slightly apart.
When your mouth is at rest, your tongue should be against the roof of your mouth, but it should not be pressing against any of your teeth. Your teeth should be slightly apart, and your lips should be closed.
When you're resting your mouth, ideally your jaw will form a perfect bite. This is when your upper and lower teeth touch lightly. Your upper front teeth (or incisors) should come down slightly in front of your lower front teeth, and the grooves on your back teeth should align.
Here are the possible causes why your teeth don't show when you smile: Your teeth are too small. You have an underbite/overbite. You have a long upper lip.
The pointed ends of the top teeth should fit perfectly between two teeth in the bottom. The backs of the upper front teeth should rest in gentle contact with the fronts of the lower ones. Essentially, your bite should “close”. If your front upper teeth stick out past your lower teeth, this is called an overbite.
If you have a posterior open bite, your back teeth don't touch when your mouth is closed. This could be causing various issues for you, like: A lisp or another type of speech impediment. It may affect the way you chew.
At no time, even when you're eating, should any of these teeth touch each other. Think about it, when you bite off your food or you're chewing, the teeth themselves are not touching each other, they are simply masticating the food. That leaves the rest of the time in your life.
In an ideal smile, 100 percent of your central and lateral upper incisors and your canines should be visible, Hilton says. Usually your upper premolars and part of your first molar should be on display. Men tend to show less of their upper teeth (hence the expression “stiff upper lip”).
In a healthy mouth, the tissues are pink, firm and moist. If you have a healthy mouth, your breath will smell pleasant or neutral. Healthy gums are firm and pink, not red or white. They are not swollen or sore.
When we say bite, what we're talking about is the way your upper and lower jaw come together. Your upper teeth should fit slightly over your lower teeth and the points of your molars should fit the grooves of the opposite molar. If your jaw lines up like this, you most likely have a healthy bite.
The teeth should not touch ever – except when swallowing. This comes as a big surprise to most people. When not chewing or swallowing, the tip of the tongue should rest gently on the tip and back of the lower incisors.
Baby and permanent teeth are both slightly pliable because of your periodontal ligaments, the small muscle fibers that hold the roots of your teeth in place. Although some movement is normal, if a tooth can move more than 1 mm, it has greater mobility than it should.
The Charismatic Complex Smile
A complex smile lives up to its name. It's the most complex smile style, and it's also the most rare, found in only about 2% of people naturally. A complex smile combines the movements in both the other smile styles and adds to it a simultaneous lowering of the lower lip.
Unattractive smile is a feature that can adversely affect the self-image of an individual. An unattractive smile can be present because of a number of factors that include dark teeth, missing or broken teeth, receding gums, and protruding teeth or jaw.