Since veneers are permanent, and since your dentist will have to remove a small portion of enamel for them to fit, you want to be sure you are happy with their aesthetics. Thankfully, there are many tools that a cosmetic dentist can use to help you narrow down your veneer choices and envision how the final result will look.

Diagnostic Wax-Ups

You've likely seen diagnostic wax-ups in your dentist's office already. These 3D models are created after a dentist takes an impression of your teeth. At a dental lab, a dental technician fills the impression with a gypsum stone to create an accurate model of your teeth and gums. Your dentist, or the lab technician, will then use a dental waxing knife or pen to carve wax into the shape of veneers over your teeth. Diagnostic wax-ups are incredibly useful tools since they give patients an accurate look at what veneers will look like on their teeth specifically. Once the wax-up is sent back to your dentist from the dental lab, they can make notes of things you like or don't like, and then the lab can make revisions before your final veneers are fabricated.

Digital Dentistry Software

You may like how your diagnostic wax-up looks, but you may have a hard time picturing how the veneers would look with your facial features. Digital dentistry software is valuable since your dentist can load a photo of you smiling and then alter the photo with your potential veneers.

Smile Libraries

You may be overwhelmed by the choice of shape and size when it comes to your veneers. A smile catalog is a great tool because it contains a catalog of smiles with appealing configurations of anterior teeth. The anterior teeth include central incisors, lateral incisors, and canines; these are the main teeth that people see when you smile. When you are looking through the smile catalog, you may notice that some teeth are more rounded while others have more pointed edges. Some smile sets may have a combination of shapes. Smile libraries are a good place to start because you can choose a smile preset, and then that smile design can be used for either the diagnostic wax-up or during digital dentistry.

Shade Guides

If you are only getting one or two veneers, you'll want to look at a shade guide to make sure that the veneer color matches your surrounding teeth. There isn't a standard guide for tooth matching, but many dentists have shade guides, which contain acrylic and porcelain teeth of varying degrees of color. Each tooth has a designated code, so once you pick the color you like, your dentist will write that shade guide code on your prescription, so that the dental lab will know how to fabricate your veneer's color.

Reach out to a cosmetic dentist today to learn more.