There are two types of daily accidents: Ones that you can forget immediately, like tripping on an uneven sidewalk or bumping into a stranger, and the ones that you’re forced to recall constantly. KC Carnage, the subject of our latest episode of Macro Beauty, knows the latter situation quite well.
Last summer, Carnage was at a party and accidentally hit her front left tooth on a glass bottle. "Maybe an hour later, I rubbed my tongue against my tooth, realized it was chipped, and ran to the bathroom and was like, ‘Oh shit,’" Carnage says.
The chip, which was noticeable on her front tooth, led to some insecurity for the singer, songwriter, and model. "It’s my front teeth, so it’s the first thing you see when I send in audition tapes or I do photoshoots," Carnage says. "I find myself do a little more editing or having to retake [pictures] just to make sure it’s a little less noticeable."
Carnage decided to do something about it this spring with the help of cosmetic dentist Bill Dorfman, DDS. (Look familiar? The Century City, California-based dentist regularly appears on Extreme Makeover.) Dr. Dorfman opted for tooth bonding to correct Carnage’s chip, an entirely painless procedure that involves adhering a composite resin material to the tooth and shaping it to look as natural as possible.
Given how Carnage’s chip was on just one tooth, it was much easier — and cheaper — to do bonding rather than opt for veneers. While one single veneer can cost you up to $3,500 and could take weeks for dentists to mold and create, bonding is usually priced around a few hundred, depending on your dentist, and can be done in one sitting.
Dr. Dorfman first lightly roughened the surface of her tooth with a sanding disc. Then he applied a purple, gooey substance with 34% phosphoric acid that created a lattice of a micro-etching on the tooth, which made it easier for the new, tooth-like resin material to adhere to the tooth. From there, the dentist then molded the resin into a shape fit for Carnage’s smile, hit it with a blue light to harden and seal the bond, and effectively created a new, durable tooth with no chip to be seen.
Carnage admitted that she was nervous before beginning. What if the color of the bonding didn’t match her tooth? What if it hurt? "I thought he was going to shave my tooth off, put me under, maybe give me some novocaine," Carnage says. "He didn’t give me any of that. I was wide awake."
According to Dr. Dorfman, you can brush and floss your teeth like normal after getting bonding, but there is one thing you want to keep in mind: Though teeth bonding does involve a "tooth-like" material, it still doesn’t have the strength of a real tooth, so you should try to not bite down into extremely hard food afterwards. Treat it delicately, and that bonding can easily be in there for more than seven years.
In less than an hour, Carnage got a chip-free smile. Click play to see her full transformation.
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Source: Refinery29 – Rachel Lubitz