Porcelain Veneers transform your smile
Do you dream of having a beautiful smile that you love? Dental veneers can give you that smile. Veneer teeth transform how teeth look without affecting tooth integrity. Wondering what are veneers? Want to see pictures of porcelain veneers before and after? What about finding out how much do veneers cost and what to expect in the veneer process? What about getting the real scoop on snap on veneers? Do those snap on fake teeth really work? Keep reading to learn all this and more.
What are Veneers?
Veneers are wafer-thin porcelain shells that are bonded to the front of your teeth. Lifelike tooth veneers put a new beautiful face on each tooth. Dental veneers can transform any aspect of a tooth including shape, color and size. The porcelain veneer itself, made from thinly layered porcelain, has the translucency of natural teeth and yet is still incredibly strong. Every tooth veneer gets custom stained by hand to create your ideal look. Whether you want a Hollywood smile or a natural looking makeover, we customize your veneers to match so that you literally get a new smile and not just new fake teeth. Wondering how long a thin porcelain veneer can last?
Keep reading. Our paragraph on how long veneers last will help you determine if veneers are a good long term investment.
Porcelain VENEERS BEFORE AND AFTER
Dental Crowns vs Dental Veneers – What’s the difference?
Many people confuse veneers and crowns because they both make teeth look new and both can be made from porcelain. What’s the difference between the two? Crowns cover the whole tooth and replace several millimeters of tooth structure. Crowns are used to repair teeth with big problems like breaks, cracks, big old fillings and big cavities. Porcelain veneers only cover the front portion of a tooth and require very minimal shaving of the front of the tooth during preparation.
Curious about what the veneer process is like? Read our paragraph below to discover what it’s like getting veneers.
Veneers Put a New Face on a Tooth
Crown wrap all the way around the tooth
WHAT IS THE PORCELAIN VENEERS PROCESS LIKE?
Hint: The Veneers Process Doesn’t Start with Drilling
Many dentists start the process with drilling. Big problem! The most beautiful, longest lasting veneers have a design story that starts long before the dentist picks up his drill. Why is that? Great question! Keep reading to find out.
First you have to know what makes a gorgeous veneer
The best veneer teeth have two key characteristics: their gorgeous cosmetics and their natural feel in the mouth. In other words, the best dental veneers combine artistry and engineering. A dentist who starts the porcelain veneer process with drilling, is like a home builder who starts a house with excavation AND NO BLUEPRINT. Is a house with no blueprint going to turn out well. No way! Your mouth is even more complex than a house.
The Veneer Process Starts with a Dream, not a Drill
The most gorgeous veneer smiles start with YOUR DREAM. What does your new smile look like in your head? What do you want to see in the mirror when it’s all done?
Dental Engineering Determines How to Turns Dreams into Reality
The second step is figuring out the engineering of how to make your dream smile a reality. What materials should we choose? What shapes and shading will be needed?
Prototypes Refine the Fusion of Esthetics and Engineering
The third step pulls the two first parts together in a wax prototype where we finalize the shape, size and look of your new teeth. Only after the prototype matches the smile in your head do we start to think about dental drills.
Trial Runs Prevent Problems
The fourth step is a trial run of your treatment on a dental model that allows me to determine exactly how the teeth need to be prepared. When preparing teeth for veneers, I only shave off a tiny fraction of a millimeter of tooth. Knowing exactly what and where to shave and polish in order to protect tooth integrity is critical to creating gorgeous veneers instead of fake teeth.
only At step 5 in the veneers process do we pick up a Drill
Only when we get to step five do we finally touch a drill to the teeth. Step five is preparing the teeth and finalizing the veneer design with a try-in smile. The temporary try-in smile phase can last anywhere from several days to several months depending on whether or not it was necessary to alter your bite. These temporary veneers allow us to perfect the design as you “live” with your new teeth. Most importantly, this phase detects any potential functional issues.
Dread the Dentist?
So many of our patients put off dental work for YEARS because they were so scared of the dentist. Being scared of the dentist is really normal. How did they finally get up the courage to get treatment? Sedation made the difference. Click HERE to read more about how sedation is helping our patients relax at the dentist.
Before
prototype try-ins
Beautiful New Smile
Buyer Beware!
The veneers above turned out gorgeous. Didn’t they? These results were only possible because of extensive detailed planning. Because the initial gap was so large, the space needed to be spread out between more teeth with Invisalign. If we would have started with veneers, the front teeth would have ended up unnaturally HUGE like horrible fake teeth!
Second, we learned things about our patient’s bite during the prototype phase that helped us to refine his design precisely to his jaw in an unusual way. Without the prototype phase, everything is guessing – and it’s not even educated guessing! Don’t get porcelain veneers without careful planning and a prototype phase!
Enjoy Your Beautiful New Smile for Years to Come
Once we’re sure the design works both cosmetically and functionally, we create the final veneers and cement them in place. Now it’s time to start smiling!!
Dental Veneers Before and After
HOW MUCH DO Dental VENEERS COST?
In San Antonio, porcelain veneers average between one and two thousand dollars per tooth. When I tell people that, they look at me crazy. “Why in the world is there such a huge price range?!?”
Two Reasons for Large The Price Range: The Veneers Process & The Lab.
Skipping Steps Makes Veneers Cheaper
The dentists who offer the cheapest veneers substitute guesswork for the first four steps of the veneers process – that’s 60% of the process that gets skipped! You tell one of these dentists that you want veneers. They say ok, pick up their drill and start shaving away tooth. They skip the planning, design and trial phases to cut down on costs. Skipping these processes still gets you a veneer, you just don’t know what it will look like, how it will feel or how long it will last in your mouth.
Using Cheap Labs Makes Veneers Cheaper Too
Cheap dentists use cheap dental labs who charge around $100 per veneer. These labs have general technicians who use basic materials. They do not offer high quality custom staining and definitely don’t go to the latest cosmetic lab courses. Cheap veneers look like fake teeth. I wouldn’t want them crafting my wife’s veneers.
In contrast, we use the best dental lab in the country. They charge nearly $700 for the lab work on a custom-stained porcelain veneer. Their veneers look absolutely lifelike because they are made from the best porcelain with the latest techniques. Their veneer technicians specialize in veneers.
We do our best to keep our costs low without compromising quality
Long lasting, gorgeous veneers require the best materials and the best techniques. Because of this, we will never be the cheapest office in town. However, we won’t ever be the most expensive either. We refuse to compromise on quality or technique even though it means that things cost a little more.
ARE VENEERS PERMANENT?
Short answer: Yes!
Long answer: It depends on how well designed they were
Veneers can last well over a decade. We’ve seen veneers lasting more than 25 years and the materials and techniques we use today are significantly better than those used 25 years ago. Today’s veneer materials are long lasting and don’t become opaque with time like we see with old crowns and fake teeth. Veneers are more resistant to staining than cosmetic bonding or even natural teeth. Veneers provide great esthetics for years to come. While we see veneers lasting more than 25 years, patients replace their veneers, on average, once in their lifetime.
That being said, the number one thing to kill veneers is an imbalanced bite. Porcelain Veneers sometimes get a bad rap for being “fragile” or “easy to chip off.” However, when they fail, it’s often because the dentist didn’t do a complete bite analysis before and after designing and placing the veneers. Having said that…
A WORD ABOUT BEER BOTTLES!
If you are opening beer bottles with your teeth or trying anything else that would be equally dangerous to your natural teeth, don’t expect me to take the blame. The things that break natural teeth will break a veneer as well. Teeth are strong, but they’re not indestructible.
A bite analysis is a critical part of every restorative procedure.
If you have a new filling, crown or veneer and you notice in the first couple weeks that it feels “different” it’s worth bringing to your dentist’s attention. Maybe it feels “thicker,” “bulgy,” or “high,” don’t ignore it. Sometimes new restorations unexpectedly alter your bite and it is critical to get things re-balanced. A balanced bite protects your restorations and your teeth and helps them last as long as possible.
WHAT ABOUT SNAP ON VENEERS?
Everyone wants “Snap-on” or “No Prep” veneers to work.
No drilling. No bonding.
Just make pretty fake teeth and snap them in!
If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is!
Snap-on veneers are bulky
We mentioned earlier that when we prepare a tooth for a veneer, we shave off a tiny amount of tooth enamel to prevent the tooth from getting too thick. To understand what we mean by too thick, imagine somebody with a fat lip. Snap-on veneers create thick teeth.
Snap-on Veneers get loose
They can’t be bonded or hooked in place without drilling or damaging the anchor teeth. Have you ever tried to bite into anything with wiggling, thick teeth? No fun.
Thick, loose snap in teeth make things awkward
The mouth is a fine-tuned part of the human body. The tongue, lips and jaws are sensitive to tiny differences in movements. When the teeth are suddenly half a millimeter or more thicker, it changes how the face looks and it also affects your ability to talk, chew and smile normally.
If Snap-on veneers were as great as they are supposed to be, I could sell them all day long. Unfortunately, they are cheap for a reason.
Schedule Your Consultation
Whether you have teeth or not, you deserve a smile you can be proud of!
A beautiful smile changes how you look. It also changes how you live. Imagine laughing and eating freely with friends again! If you want to smile with confidence, we can help. Take the first step today. Schedule your consultation!
