This patient with very darkly stained teeth had seen a general dentist to masque out the stain. The veneers he placed embarrased her because they were chalky white, and you could still see the darkness of the underlying teeth in some points. While this case was successful in his eyes, it didn't give her the results she was looking for, and so she searched for a cosmetic dentist who could give her the smile of her dreams.

When I stripped off 3 of his veneers, you can see the shade difference of the underlying teeth, and also the fact that these teeth were not prepared, at all. Without preparations, you cannot develop enough opacity to block out the darkness. Without preparation, you end up with very thick, opaque looking, unnatural-looking teeth.

This picture shows the completed view of the preparations, and how much darker these tetracycline-stained teeth get, as you go deeper into them. Note that the shade tab in the picture is designed as a communication tool for the laboratory technician, so that he can mimic those shades at the lab, and be sure the final result comes as close as possible to the desired shade results. Without this step, no matter how white you want the teeth to be, it will be darkened by the shade of the "stump."

The completed veneers show how well the underlying shade has been masqued. The overall shade is not one color, but varied, like a natural tooth, with a very nice soft feminie shape. The edges are what separate the men from the boys, as my website www.theedgesmiles.com attests to. These edges are very attractive.

>Every patient in our practice is offered a private portrait shoot in our professional photo studio on the third floor of our office building. Who wouldn't be thrilled with these results?