Hi, it’s Dr Michael Ghobrial, here, from Sure Dental. We often have patients find us and want to have a discussion about veneers to improve their smile or fix their chipped or broken teeth, or improve the colour of their teeth. One of the biggest things that we need to cover with patients when they come and talk about veneers is the different types of veneers. Often, people want to know about composite veneer versus porcelain veneer. Which direction should I head in? What’s going to be best for me? I thought I’d do this blog to help people understand the difference, and the pros and cons of the different types of veneers, both composite veneers and porcelain veneers.
Now, these are general principles, and really, it’s very important to have a thorough assessment of your smile, assessment of your bite, and the general environment in your mouth, as well, to really know exactly what’s an option for you, and what’s beneficial, and what would be best for you.
Generally speaking, the costs of composite veneers are cheaper than porcelain veneers. They require no or very little tooth reduction. Nowadays, the resins that we use, we can layer, and use stains and colours to make them look alive and look more like natural teeth than they used to. Some of the new resins can polish up very nicely, which makes them look really great when they’re done, initially. Composite veneers will give a lovely result.
Probably, the cons of the composite veneers are that they do dull with time, and they do tend to pick up more stains than your porcelain veneers. They look really great for the first couple of years, but then, they can deteriorate a little bit.
Porcelain veneers, on the other hand, are more expensive than resin veneers. That’s the main sort of drawback. The other thing is we need to make room for the porcelain. Often, there’s some careful, minimal tooth reduction, and we work very hard, here, to do our pre-digital workups, and do everything we can to make sure that we preserve a lot of tooth structure. It’s actually very rare that we even need local anesthetic when we’re doing our tooth preparation time for veneers because they’re so minimally invasive.
Porcelain veneers will tend to hold their colour much better. They will last much longer. They will look great, their whole lifespan. The resins will need some continual polishing, and probably, replacing somewhere in that four-to-six-year mark. You get, sort of, double that length of lifespan out of your porcelain veneers. They tend to chip less often and they won’t wear because they’re much more enamel-like.
Both resin and porcelain veneers definitely have their pros and cons. Depending on your situation and what you’re trying to achieve, both can be great solutions for you. If you want to know more about the difference between porcelain or resin veneers, or even get assessed and see what’s actually best for you, visit our website at suredental.com.au, fill in an inquiry, or message us through our social media, or give us a call on 07 3113 9698.
