What makes a smile beautiful? That’s a complex question, but some qualities of a lovely smile are immediately identifiable: good tooth color, shape and alignment are a few of the most important ones.
If your teeth could use improvement in any of these categories, porcelain veneers could be just what you’re looking for.
You may already know that a veneer is a thin covering over another surface. In dentistry, a veneer is a wafer-thin layer of super-strong porcelain that convincingly substitutes for natural tooth enamel. When bonded to your teeth, veneers can create a natural-looking, beautiful new surface. That’s because dental porcelain, like natural tooth enamel, is translucent and tough. But it doesn’t stain like tooth enamel does.
Recent years have brought remarkable advances in dental porcelain technology. Only a very thin layer of tooth enamel — as thin as the veneer itself — needs to be removed to fit the new porcelain surface and make it look as lifelike as possible. Our practice has the ability to set up your case and work with some of the best dental ceramic artisans on the planet today. The results are sure to make you smile.
We can use veneers to improve any of the following characteristics of your teeth:
There are some situations in which veneers would be inappropriate. For example, if you have significantly misaligned teeth or a large gap, we might recommend orthodontics instead of or in conjunction with veneers. And if you have lost a lot of tooth structure from decay or trauma (or a particularly severe grinding habit), it might be better to restore your teeth with porcelain crowns that cover the entire tooth.
The first step in creating a new smile with porcelain veneers is to communicate exactly what you don’t like about your smile as it is now. It’s a great idea to bring in pictures of smiles you do like, as a starting point for discussion. We can show you how veneers would look on your teeth in one of several ways. We can create a model of your teeth and put wax “veneers” on the model; we can even put acrylic (plastic) or tooth-colored filling material directly onto your teeth to demonstrate the effect veneers would have on them.
Once we have agreed on a plan, we will prepare your teeth by removing a small amount of enamel, if this step is necessary. Molds of your teeth will be taken and used by our skilled dental laboratory to create your veneers, and you will receive a temporary set of veneers to wear during the few weeks it will take to create your permanent veneers. We will be in touch with the laboratory throughout the fabrication process to make sure the finished product is just what we’ve envisioned. When the veneers come back from the lab, they will be cemented onto your teeth.
