Huefner Sensational Smiles Blog

One of the biggest concerns people have about their smile is that their teeth discolor over the years. Bleaching is one answer, but often it has to be repeated and doesn't produce teeth as white as patient want. Porcelain veneers is an answer to whiter teeth, and also many other issues (such as size, crowding, proportion, shape, length, etc.), but many patients want to know that their new smile with porcelain veneers won't change color and darken over the years. This was certainly something that used to happen with plastic bonding that was done a decade or so ago.
Fortunately, with a smile on my face, I can assure my cosmetic dentistry patients that by using porcelain veneers we almost never see this the veneers darken over time. Porcelain veneers are dense and smooth as glass, and as such rarely pick up any stain. In placing porcelain veneers for over 20 years I have only had one instance where my patient had veneers that were staining, and that was because he was an avid cigar smoker. After polishing off the cigar stain and showing him a few techniques to improve his brushing habits, his veneers never seemed to pick up any stain after that. However, natural teeth and the older fashioned plastic veneers (which we used to use a lot in the 1980s when cosmetic bonding was first introduced into dentistry) will pick up stain and will often times darken over the years. To help overcome this, natural teeth can be polished in the dental office and bleaching treatments can be used. Old fashioned plastic bonding used to get a yellowish discoloration over the years because of the hardener incorporated into it, but with newer hardeners used today this rarely happen any more, but they still tend to stain and chip more than porcelain. However because of the superior color stability and increased strength of porcelain veneers, most dentists doing significant smile enhancements prefer using porcelain rather than plastic bonding for their patients.
Here is a photo of a patient who returned to my practice 19 years after I did porcelain veneers on her upper front four teeth. Notice that the veneers still match her other upper teeth, no wear or chipping, and they still have a great shine.

THE FACT THAT THESE VENEERS ABOVE WERE DONE 19 YEARS AGO SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE COLOR RESISTANCE AND DURABILITY OF PORCELAIN VENEERS!

It is interesting that this patient returned to my practice because she now wanted all her teeth whiter. This brings up a very important point, that since porcelain veneers don’t discolor it is essential that the cosmetic dentist and patient together choose an appropriate color for the new veneers. Back in 1986 when I originally placed those four porcelain veneers almost all patients and dentists tried to make teeth look natural and not too light in color, as those were the times before teeth whitening procedures became so common. But these days most all patients want whiter and brighter smiles, and choose colors to make them look younger, cleaner and more professional. Thus, when patients have darker teeth, like this lady, today we would generally recommend to do porcelain veneers on 8-10 teeth, to create a more esthetic and homogenous smile that goes along with the lighter color. These are some examples of more current smile makeover with veneers that we are doing in our practice. Note the lighter, more attractive colors currently in vogue.

Dr. Norman Huefner, General and Cosmetic Dentistry, Laguna Niguel, CA