The good, the bad, and the ugly of dental porcelain veneers

What should you know about veneers before you are even considering them?

I have done thousands of veneers, and more and more people are asking me about them lately. The trend is ascending—the main drivers are cosmetics and, implicitly, emotions.

A long-standing patient of mine keeps changing her preference every time I see her for a check-up. We did what was necessary, but there is quite a debate regarding cosmetics, personal preferences, social influences…. I sometimes feel I am protecting her from herself. New patients already ask for treatment with veneers. Still, when we have a more in-depth discussion to identify the benefits they seek, I discover that they are poorly informed and sometimes even misled by advertising campaigns or online information. But that is not the point I want to make…; it is interesting how vulnerable lay people are without objective, evidence-based data. Hence, my attempt in this article is to provide the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (evidence-based and medically relevant) of having porcelain veneers done.

Let us start with the Good: