Health & Medical Dental & Oral

Beverly Hills Dentist Offers Advice on Selecting the Appropriate Colors for Porcelain Veneers

Patients interested in porcelain veneers often wonder how white the veneers should be.
Teeth are not monochromatic, so using a variety of shades yields a natural look, said Dr.
Anthony Mobasser, a Los Angeles dentist who specializes in cosmetic and reconstructive dentistry.
Some Background First let’s address the obvious question and define porcelain veneers.
A porcelain veneer is a thin sheet of porcelain that can be affixed to the surface of a tooth to improve smiles by covering chipped, broken, stained or misshaped teeth.
Porcelain is usually thought of as a delicate material, but when bonded to a tooth, it is incredibly strong and durable.
Selecting a Veneer Shade Mobasser recommends patients undergo a teeth whitening treatment to whiten their natural teeth prior to placing porcelain veneers.
Because veneers are extremely thin, a tooth that is dark or deeply stained could provide a shading effect once the veneers are affixed that causes the finished product to be darker than desired.
Why not choose a thicker porcelain veneer? “The translucency of porcelain veneers gives them the ability to mimic natural tooth enamel and creates a natural appearance,” Mobasser said.
Using more than one color in making the veneers also provides variation and avoids teeth looking fake or artificial.
Eye teeth tend to be darker than the others, while front teeth typically are the whitest.
Molars most often are a shade between the two.
Another important factor to consider is the surface texture of porcelain veneers, Mobasser said.
Adequate texture helps to break up light reflections and make the veneer look more natural.
There is no one standard system in the dental field to measure and determine tooth color, according towww.
aboutcosmeticdentistry.
com [http://www.
aboutcosmeticdentistry.
com/procedures/tooth_veneers/veneer_color.
html] The most often heard about, however, is the Vita shade guide.
This guide divides tooth color into four basic shade ranges: A (reddish brown) B (reddish yellow) C (gray) D (reddish gray) In the A range there are five levels of darkness.
Ranges B, C and D each have four levels.
© 2007 Sinai Marketing and Dr.
Anthony Mobasser.
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