Dental veneers (sometimes called porcelain veneers or dental porcelain laminates) are wafer-thin, custom-made shells of tooth-colored materials designed to cover the front surface of teeth to improve your appearance. These shells are bonded to the front of the teeth changing their color, shape, size, or length. A dentist replaces the part of the tooth that is lost with a material called composite. Composite is a material used for the restoration of a patient’s teeth.
It can be challenging to create a visually-pleasing anterior composite restoration. The anterior teeth are, essentially, the ones you see when you smile. For obvious reasons, people want perfectly-crafted replacements. To be successful, the clinician needs to understand proper shade selection and must be able to accurately replicate the natural luster of a tooth and the correct tooth shape. This understanding is particularly important when restoring a single front tooth, which is seen more than back teeth. The very latest direct composite systems can be particularly effective, enabling a skilled dentist to create a restoration that will blend in with the patient’s natural teeth. The basic principle behind creating an anterior composite restoration is to replace dentin, the hard material that makes up most of the tooth, with dentin-like materials. They must also replace enamel with enamel-like materials. Often adding a few extra steps to your technique will help produce a far superior result, meeting a patient’s expectations.
With this particular technique, the clinician first creates a sub-layer of dentin followed by a layer of enamel. Building a thin lingual shelf helps create a good edge on which to create the dentinal lobes, which can then be used to accurately place the appropriate amount of translucency in between the lobes. Once this is in place, the outward-facing enamel shade can be applied. The shape of the restoration is adjusted to ensure the forms are closely duplicated before being polished. When completed properly, a patient is left with a bright, vibrant, untarnished smile!
