Dr. Joel L. Schaffer Blog

Porcelain veneers are thin tooth covers custom-made for your individual teeth. The dental porcelain used looks and functions very much like tooth enamel. It absorbs some light and reflects some, like enamel, and has a similar pearly sheen. That means that your porcelain veneers will not be detectable as being veneers. They will just look like your natural teeth.

Dental Defects Corrected by Porcelain Veneers
Since a veneer is a tooth cover, affixed to the front surface of the tooth, it covers whatever defects are on the tooth. That may be:

• Discoloration that will not respond to teeth whitening
• Cracks and chips
• Misalignment
• Mismatched sizes
• Crookedness
• Gaps between teeth

You can have veneers done for all your front teeth that are visible when you smile, or you can have just one if there is a single problem tooth, or just the top two or four teeth. It is entirely up to you and Dr. Schaffer as to exactly how many veneers would best correct your smile.

To correct gaps, two veneers are designed, each a little wider than the tooth it covers. They meet nicely to give a more complete smile with no visible gap. To correct mismatched sizes, one veneer would have a slightly different size, so as to match the other tooth. To correct crookedness, a veneer would be made slightly thicker on the tooth’s receding side and thinner on its protruding side.

Veneers are known as indirect restorations, as they are not applied directly to your teeth like cosmetic bonding or the old amalgam fillings. They are first custom-made in a dental laboratory according to your dentist's specifications. Then they are bonded permanently to the teeth.

Porcelain neither stains nor whitens, so if your teeth need whitening, do that before you have your veneers. Then Dr. Schaffer can match them to your newly-brightened tooth color.

Porcelain veneers do not require any special care beyond your daily brushing and flossing and regular professional cleanings.

Please contact our cosmetic dentistry office to learn more about porcelain veneers and to schedule your personal consultation with Dr. Schaffer. We serve both Denver and Boulder in Colorado and we hope to meet with you soon.