by 
Hey all,
I know a lot of people who dare not smile with their teeth showing in front of the camera. It is too common nowadays, not because people are getting too self-aware of their appearance, but because of a wrong perception. I’ll explain about this wrong perception later on in the article.
Just read on for now.
If I give you a stretch of photos of the same person posing with different facial expressions, which would you pick as the most beautiful one? The most likely answer would be the one where the model smiles and shows his/her teeth.
Smiling exerts confidence and happiness, and both are personality magnets.
So if smiling exerts confidence or happiness, why must we smile with our teeth showing? Why can’t we smile without our teeth showing?
Well, the obvious answer is that smiling without any teeth showing just doesn’t seem natural. It looks like fake happiness just for the sake of the photo itself. Smiling without showing your teeth are usually small smiles. Yes, of course, some people might be able to smile without showing their teeth and look natural at the same time but that’s not too common.
By smiling with your teeth showing, you are not only having a bigger smile, you are also changing your face structure so that your eyes, nose and ears ‘smile’ along with your mouth. More often that not, smiling with your teeth showing changes the appearance of your eyes, nose and sometimes, ears. This makes the happiness you exert more natural, more charming, and more beautiful.
Now, back to the perception thing. Okay, some of you might say that you look better with a neutral expression – ie, not smiling. But that’s not true. You might look better with a neutral expression compared to the best looking neutral expression person, but that doesn’t mean you look better than when you smile. Okay, I know that sounds confusing so I will try to explain it better.
Let’s just say we have an appearance rating system, where higher ratings mean better looking. The best looking neutral expression person might have an appearance rating of 500. But the best looking smiling expression person might have an appearance rating of 1000. That’s just an estimate and random guess, by the way.
So you might say you look better when you are showing a neutral expression. Let’s say you have a neutral rating of 450. That’s good, because compared to the best neutral person, you are not too far off.
Now, if you smile, you will most likely get to an appearance rating of 650. Don’t argue me about this, because anybody smiling WILL definitely look better than if he/she’s not.But you might not feel this way, because you are far off from the best smiling looking person rating of 1000.
So basically, your neutral rating ratio is 450:500 whereas your smiling rating ratio is only 650:1000. What this means is that your upgrade from neutral to smiling expression might not be as good as other people – most likely due to bad or dirty teeth – but you still look better smiling than when you are not.
Now, do you understand? So many people’s perception of ‘if you have bad teeth, you don’t show your teeth because you look worse’ is wrong. You won’t look worse if you smile. You will only look better. But in comparison with the best looking people, your smile might not be as good as your neutral expression. But the point of this post is: to present your best appearance, smiling is one of the top criteria.
Thanks.
