Often it starts with a photo. You see yourself in a wedding picture or a family snapshot, and your eye goes straight to the two front teeth, which look wider or longer than everything around them. Once you notice it, it is hard to stop, and plenty of people start smiling with their lips closed without ever deciding to.
Large front teeth are a cosmetic concern, not a flaw, and dentistry has well-established ways to bring them into balance with the teeth beside them. Dr. Canatella hears this concern often at his Lakeview practice, and the first conversation about it should feel like relief, not a judgment. Shane, in a 5-star review, wrote that the team “made me feel comfortable, didn’t make me feel humiliated” before laying out a course of action toward a better smile.
Why Do My Two Front Teeth Look So Much Bigger Than the Rest?
There are two broad explanations, and they lead to different fixes. A dentist confirms which one applies to you in person, with an exam and digital X-rays. It is not something to settle from a mirror or a selfie.
Macrodontia: Central Incisors That Are Truly Oversized
Macrodontia is the clinical name for teeth that really are larger than typical. When it affects the two upper central incisors, those teeth are wide or long in their own right, not just by comparison with their neighbors. It tends to run in families, and it is uncommon. When it is the cause, any plan has to work with the size of the front teeth themselves, which usually rules out a small adjustment on its own.
Smaller Lateral Incisors
Far more often, the front teeth are a normal size and the lateral incisors, the narrower teeth on either side, are small or underdeveloped. Some people have peg-shaped laterals that taper toward the edge. Others simply have laterals that came in slimmer than average. Next to them, ordinary central incisors read as wide front teeth, and the fix may mean adding to the small teeth rather than taking anything away from the large ones.
Arch Shape and Wear
Smaller details shift proportions too. A narrow dental arch or a particular jaw shape can bring the front teeth forward so they look more prominent. Where the gum line sits matters as well: gum tissue resting lower over the lateral incisors hides part of those teeth, while a higher line over the front two shows more of them. Wear changes the picture over time, too. Grinding or decades of chewing can shorten the side teeth, so two front teeth longer than the rest are sometimes the result of everything around them getting shorter.
The causes of big front teeth are well understood, but you can’t tell at home which one, or which combination, describes your smile. Dr. Canatella looks at how the teeth relate to each other, to your gums and to your face, and at the health of the whole mouth, before any cosmetic change is discussed.
Dental Bonding, Enamel Contouring and Porcelain Veneers for Large Front Teeth
Once the cause is clear, the options come down to a short list. Each works differently, and the right one depends on what the exam shows. Think of what follows as the tools Dr. Canatella has to work with, not a menu to order from.
Dental Bonding to Build Up Smaller Lateral Incisors
Bonding uses tooth-colored composite resin, shaded to match your enamel, which is sculpted directly onto the tooth and hardened with a curing light. When small lateral incisors make the front teeth look oversized, adding width or length to the laterals can balance the row without touching the front teeth at all. Little or no enamel is removed, and the work is often finished in a single visit. Composite can stain and chip more easily than porcelain over the years, so bonded teeth are polished and checked at later visits.
Enamel Contouring for Long Front Teeth
When the imbalance is slight, contouring may be all it takes. Dr. Canatella gently reshapes the biting edges of the front teeth, removing a very small amount of enamel so they sit in better proportion to the laterals. Only the outer enamel is involved, so it is typically done in one visit and usually without anesthetic. Enamel does not grow back, though, so contouring has firm limits. It suits a slight difference, not front teeth that are much larger than the rest.
Porcelain Veneers for a Uniform Smile
Veneers are thin, custom porcelain shells bonded to the front surfaces of the teeth. They let Dr. Canatella adjust the size, shape, length, and color of several teeth together, which is why they are used when the goal is a more complete, uniform smile rather than a fix for one detail. The design starts with your face: your lip line, the width of your smile, and how much tooth shows when you speak and laugh. Canatella Dental’s veneers are hand-crafted by a premium dental lab. Placing them usually means removing a thin layer of enamel, which makes them a permanent commitment, and Dr. Canatella walks through that carefully before anything begins.
Ceramic Crowns When a Tooth Also Needs Restoring
Sometimes a tooth that looks out of proportion is also damaged, with a large old filling, a crack or heavy wear. When a tooth needs its strength restored as well as its shape, Dr. Canatella may recommend a crown. With CEREC same-day crowns, he personally designs the crown from a digital scan of your tooth, and the ceramic restoration is glazed and baked in a pressurized oven before it is cemented. Shape, shade, and length can then be matched to the neighboring teeth in a single appointment.
The choice between these is Dr. Canatella’s clinical call, made after the exam. That call only helps you if you understand why he made it, and patients say the explanation is part of the visit. Matt, in a 5-star review, wrote that Dr. Canatella “takes the time to explain every procedure in detail” and answers questions until patients feel confident in the plan.
From the First Exam to a Balanced Smile, One Step at a Time
Changing the proportions of a smile is rarely one dramatic moment. It is more often a sequence: the exam and digital X-rays, then a conversation about what Dr. Canatella sees and what he recommends, then the treatment itself. That might be one bonding visit, or a few appointments for veneers or crowns. Each step has a purpose, and you know what comes next before you leave.
That step-by-step pace is what patients describe when they look back on their treatment. Daniel, in a 5-star review, wrote that after a series of appointments and several new crowns, “my teeth are finally how they should be”. Shane’s review also mentions having the course of treatment laid out clearly before it began, which matters most when the work runs across several visits.
Results differ from person to person. How a smile responds depends on the teeth, gums, and bite you start with, so Dr. Canatella talks about what is realistic for your teeth rather than promising a particular look. The before-and-after makeovers in the Canatella Dental smile gallery are real patients’ results, and each one shows a single person’s outcome, not a guarantee.
Premium Materials and an Upfront Fee
Cosmetic work rewards patience, and Canatella Dental is set up for it. The practice is independently owned and fee-for-service, a model it calls Clinical Independence. Dr. Canatella answers to the patient in the chair, not to an insurance adjuster deciding which material or how many visits a plan will cover. Appointments are never double-booked, so the time set aside for your visit is yours.
Dr. Canatella has been in practice for over 25 years, and his roots here run deep: Holy Cross High School, LSU, then the LSU School of Dentistry. Proportion work depends on small judgments, like matching the translucency of a bonded edge to the tooth beside it, and those judgments come with years of practice. You know the full investment for your plan before treatment starts. For patients who prefer to spread it out, third-party financing through CareCredit and Cherry is available, and approval comes back in seconds; see the Payment and Insurance page for financing links. HSA and FSA funds can be applied as well.
The Drive to Canatella Dental in Lakeview
Not everyone who comes to Canatella Dental lives around the corner, so the drive deserves an honest answer. Patients come from Metairie across the 17th Street Canal, from Kenner on I-10, and from the Northshore over the Causeway. For a bonding case, that one drive often covers the whole treatment, because the composite is shaped and cured in a single sitting and you leave with the finished result. CEREC same-day crowns are designed, glazed, and finished in the office at 101 W. Robert E. Lee Blvd, Suite 305, so your crown is done the same day you come in for it.
The office is open Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday from 8 a.m. to noon. Wednesday’s later start suits a contouring visit for anyone coming in from Kenner once the morning traffic on I-10 has eased. You can also make a Lakeview outing of it, with lunch on Harrison Avenue or a walk in City Park or along the lakefront. After bonding, go easy on coffee and red wine for the first day or two, which makes the walk the better plan.
Questions About Long, Wide and Large Front Teeth
Why are my front two teeth longer than the rest?
Most of the time, your front two teeth look longer because of what surrounds them: lateral incisors that are naturally short, a gum line that sits lower over the side teeth, or side teeth worn down by grinding. That distinction decides the fix, since shortening front teeth that are actually a normal length would trade one imbalance for another. Dr. Canatella compares their length to your lip line, both at rest and in a full smile, then checks gum levels and wear patterns with digital x-rays before recommending anything. If grinding is part of the story, a custom nightguard may come into the conversation to protect the finished result.
Are your front teeth supposed to be longer than the rest?
The two upper central incisors are naturally a little longer and wider than the lateral incisors beside them. A smile where every front tooth is the same length tends to look artificial, so good cosmetic work keeps that gentle step down from the center rather than erasing it. The question is whether the step suits your face, and Dr. Canatella answers that by studying your lip line, the width of your smile, and how much tooth shows when you talk, so the proportions he recommends are designed around you and not taken from a chart.
How do you fix two long front teeth?
Two long front teeth can be fixed by shortening their edges, lengthening the teeth beside them, or reshaping the whole group through bonding, contouring, or veneers, depending on your specific bite and aesthetic goals. If your lower front teeth guide against those upper edges when you bite, removing length may not be appropriate, and building up the neighboring teeth may be the better path. That is why Dr. Canatella checks how your teeth meet before any enamel is touched, and why the plan he explains to you is built on your bite as much as on the appearance of your smile.
Is a supernumerary tooth rare?
An extra, or supernumerary, tooth is uncommon, and it is a separate matter from macrodontia: one is an additional tooth, while the other is a normal number of teeth that are larger than typical. An extra tooth near the front can crowd or shift the front teeth so they look larger or out of line, so treating the problem as one of size with bonding or veneers would miss the cause. Some extra teeth never come in at all and only appear on digital X-rays, which is one reason Dr. Canatella images the area before planning any cosmetic change.
What is the rarest type of tooth?
There is no official ranking, but extra teeth beyond the usual set are among the rarer things a dentist finds, and some kinds, such as an extra molar behind the wisdom teeth, are rarer still. Treat anything unusual you notice, whether an extra point of tooth, a tooth sitting out of line, or a gap that keeps changing, as a reason to have it examined, not as something to research on your own. The most common extra tooth, called a mesiodens, sits between the two upper front teeth, and a careful exam with digital X-rays is how Dr. Canatella tells it apart from a front tooth that is simply large.
Do you inherit teeth from mom or dad?
From both: tooth size, tooth shape, and jaw dimensions come from genes contributed by each parent, which is why a smile pattern, including larger front teeth or slim lateral incisors, often shows up across a family. Parents who recognize their own proportions in a child’s new adult teeth can have those teeth watched as they come in, since Canatella Dental sees patients from age one through adulthood. Cosmetic work on front teeth is usually considered once they have fully erupted and the gums have settled, and Dr. Canatella can tell you when your child has reached that point.
Request a private consultation with Dr. Canatella at Canatella Dental in Lakeview by calling (504) 282-0700.
This information is general and is not a diagnosis. Consult your dentist about your own teeth. Treatment recommendations follow an in-person exam, and individual results vary with each patient’s condition.