Cosmetic Dentistry: Best Color Porcelain Veneers for You?

What color do you make your new porcelain veneers?

Do you want them to match the color of your other teeth as they are now? Probably not, especially since your teeth have most likely stained and darkened over the years.

If you are like most people, you’ll want your new porcelain veneers lighter in color than they are now, which will help make you appear younger and healthier, but not too white or “fake looking”.

Here is a photo of a typical dental shade guide on the right, showing the sixteen basic shades going from darkest at the far right, to lighter shades on the left. These are the “natural” colors. Ten years ago most all veneers were made in one of those shades. But today, with bleaching and veneering, most people want their teeth whiter than those more “naturally” colored shades. On the left you’ll note the four new “bleaching shades”, which are whiter than the shades that occur naturally.

Today it is very typical for our patients to bleach their lower teeth and then do their porcelain veneers on their upper teeth in one of the four bleaching shades. At this time shade “020” and “030” are our most popular for smile makeovers involving 6-10 upper veneers.

Although the color of the porcelain is very important, I remind our patients that it is not the only thing that determines how white or natural your smile appears. The “translucency” or “opacity” of the porcelain is a huge factor in allowing or not allowing light to partially pass through the veneers to appear natural. Real teeth have that translucency, and in general, unless the underlying teeth are extremely dark, some translucency is what we want in porcelain veneers or crowns on front teeth to mimic with the life-like and vital look of real teeth.

This doesn’t happen with opaque porcelains or with porcelain over metal (gold) crowns. The opacity, which often appears “life-less” is what so many patients object too when they see dentistry that they think looks “fake”.

But with semi-translucent veneers, which are bonded over natural teeth, the teeth can look whiter than natural teeth but still look extremely natural because of the “translucency factor”. Most of the smile makeovers with porcelain veneers that we place are done using MAC Empress Porcelain, which has beautiful life-like translucency, great colors and looks extremely natural even in the bleaching shade range. This is why so many of our patients go into the 020 or 030 shades and their veneers still look “real”.

Our patients always have the final decision on what color to make their porcelain veneers, but for those who want their veneers to be in the older and darker natural shades (in one of those sixteen shades on the right) I remind them that the color of their new porcelain veneers is permanent and they won’t lighten or darken over the years. With so many people bleaching their teeth and doing things to enhance their image, wanting to make themselves look younger and more attractive, we’re seeing society as a whole more and more often choosing one of the four bleaching shades on the left.

Color is very subjective, but our main criteria for shade selection is that the patient is happy with the choice of their new porcelain veneers. Here are photos of four ladies, each choosing a different color for their new porcelain veneers: