Last medically reviewed by : August 23, 2021
It is so important to limit the preparation of the teeth for so many reasons, most importantly reducing damage to the teeth, but secondly increasing the lifespan of the veneers.
Drilling teeth to stumps is a very old-fashioned way of treating patients, and often this is what dentists are taught. We teach many dentists each year at The Bespoke Smile Academy our minimal preparation veneer techniques so more patients can be treated in this safe way. Often preparation is not needed at all and veneers can be placed against the tooth as it is.
This is one of the most exciting things you will do, but it can be daunting. We know that these changes take time to get used to, and also we want it to be exactly what you are looking for.
This is why we produce a handmade trial smile, this is using composite resin material which is bonded to the teeth, they are temporary veneers and they are artistically created by our dentists.
This means the entire smile design is bespoke and incredibly unique to you. You would then return for us to review the trial smile after you have had time to assess and decide which bits of it you want to keep and which bits you want to tweak.
This gives you total control of the results, but also it means you and your dentist are designing the teeth, not the technician who is based in a laboratory and hasn’t spent the time with you and hasn’t assessed your facial features in detail as the dentist would have.
It is not easy to produce a trial smile, which is why often patients will not have heard of this technique before. We teach dentists this technique who wish to learn how to give their patients better results at The Bespoke Smile Academy.
One of the most poorly understood areas of dentistry is the bite pattern or chewing pattern. Many patients are simply told they grind their teeth and that is why things break, and there is nothing that can be done.
This is not the case, and we teach dentists this topic in detail at The Bespoke Smile Academy. If any bite issues are corrected using simple methods, and a trial smile is used to test the bite and chewing to assist in the designing of the veneers, then there is very little to almost no risk of veneers breaking or chipping.
It is important that your quality of life is maintained, you should not have to stop yourself from eating things because of dentistry, your teeth should work for you. In the trial smile stage, we correct and test the new chewing and bite pattern to make sure we can protect your teeth and veneers for the long term.
With recommended regular hygienist visits, as we would always recommend with or without veneers, and good oral hygiene, we would expect 10-20+ years for our porcelain veneers.
No. Porcelain is stain resistant
When one builds a house, there is a team involved. An architect and designer are used to plan and design the blueprint and template model, followed by highly-trained builders and carpenters, to produce the final result.
A smile makeover is no different, at most dental clinics, veneers will be designed, planned, and made, by the technicians (the builders), but at our clinic, the blueprint and template, and design are in the control of the dentists and patient, with the final product then copied into final porcelain by our technician.
Veneers can be made to include texture, translucency, and the trial smile will be used to allow you to decide exactly the look you are after. They can also be made to look super glossy, or super perfect – it all comes down to your personal choice.
You would preview all of this in the trial smile phase and are able to design with your dentist exactly your preference.
You are able to decide on your desired colour, whilst in the trial smile phase. We will encourage whitening of the teeth before starting so that you are in future protecting yourself from having to replace any veneers due to the natural teeth anywhere else in the mouth darkening.
This will depend on what your concerns are, and how much you wish to improve your smile. We will always guide and demonstrate the benefits of choosing a certain number of veneers specifically for you.
In general, 4 upper veneers would be a good starting point, but this can always be increased or reduced.
We would discourage choosing cheap options, where there is a lack of experience, skill, and quality.
Sadly our dentists have had to redo a number of cases for patients where dentistry has been done cheaply and without due consideration to health, the bite, and aesthetics.
This has ended up costing the patients far more and damaging their teeth far more than having dental work done by a highly trained dentist at a reputable clinic.
