Porcelain Veneers

The first step in the porcelain veneer process is for you to come in for a consultation and discuss your options. This is your chance to interview us, and for us to show you what’s possible! We’ll take digital images of your teeth and smile, and we’ll talk about your objectives, whether it’s closing spaces, straightening, whitening, etc.

Your pictures are displayed in a private environment on a high-definition LCD display. Our dentists are experienced listeners. They will spend time with you looking at your photographs and listening to what you have to say about your smile. This is where artistry comes into play.

We’ll show you pictures of amazing smiles to see what appeals to you and we’ll offer guidance for which smile might best match the shape and contours of your face. You’ll see hundreds of examples of our own cosmetic dentistry work.

Our entire team is dedicated to understanding what you are looking for. We offer custom treatment plans for treatment of all scope, whether it’s only two porcelain veneers, or a full-mouth restoration of 28 teeth. You’ll receive a personalized treatment plan for best achieving your goals and we’ll walk you through the details. By the time this appointment is finished our doctors will have created the formula that will give you EXACTLY the smile you want, and more than you might have thought possible!

Once we’ve established the cosmetic plan for your smile we make impressions (models) of your mouth and teeth. These are sent with detailed instructions to a Master Ceramist. We choose the best ceramists in the country, based on your specific plan. We communicate with them every step of the way to give you the results you want.

The ceramist will mount your models on a chewing simulator machine and place wax on the teeth to mimic what your veneers will look like. This “wax-up” blueprint ensures the restorations will function properly in your mouth.

Atlanta Dental Spa is concerned not only about your smile looking fabulous, but we also want the results to be functionally long-lasting!

The wax-up serves two purposes: 1) It allows you and the doctor to preview the end result BEFORE we ever start working in your mouth, and 2) provides a template from which we will design your temporary veneers. The wax-up gives us a great starting point for forming your temporaries in the most conservative way possible. Your temporaries will look beautiful, and they allow you to test drive your new smile.

Following the wax-up, we’re ready to proceed with the actual dental procedure. We’ll do any necessary contouring of the tooth, ensuring that we’re being as conservative as possible. We’ll numb and prepare your teeth to make models on which the actual veneers are made.

The contouring will vary based on our wax-up blueprint. We often do combination cases, where some teeth receive contouring and others are left untouched. For example, if we have a case with ten veneers there might be some teeth for which we do traditional veneer preparation and others we may be able to handle with a “no-prep” process.

At Atlanta Dental Spa we don’t grind teeth down to nubs – OUCH! This approach is WAY TOO AGGRESSIVE. Being conservative with tooth reduction requires more skill by the dentists so we’re proud to be among the elite class who are dedicated to providing the BEST results for you.

After we have contoured your teeth we will fit you with the dental temporaries that have been created from your wax-up. The wax-up is your road map, and the temporaries are your test drive. You’re almost at the finish line!

This test drive gives us the opportunity to make modifications, whether functional or cosmetic. We can make adjustments if they’re too long, too short, too round, etc. You’ll get to identify those changes as we move toward fabricating your permanent veneers with our master ceramist. You’ll wear the temporaries for about three weeks, giving you ample time for alterations.

Check out our informative videos below for more details about the process with temporaries.

The final step is the bonding and placement of your beautiful porcelain veneers. Congratulations, this is the big day! You will have been wearing your temporaries for a few weeks, test driving everything about them. At this seat appointment we remove the temporaries, try in the finished porcelain to make sure it is perfect and to make sure you LOVE the results.

We then permanently bond in the porcelain restorations. We’ll equilibrate your bite, meaning we align all forces so you have perfectly natural movement. If needed, we’ll make impressions for a protective guard for night time wear. The process is now complete!