Which Veneer Material?
A side-by-side look at the two materials, and the handful of questions that usually make the decision for you.
Should I Choose Porcelain or Composite Veneers, and What Does Each Cost in Lanark?
Porcelain lasts longer and shrugs off staining better, often for 10 to 15 years, but it usually involves permanently shaping a thin layer of enamel. Composite is built onto the tooth over one or two visits with little or no drilling, costs less at the outset and will generally need a polish or top-up somewhere between three and five years in. At our Lanark practice, porcelain veneers start at £695 a tooth and composite veneers are £395 a tooth.
In a Nutshell
Either material covers the front surface of a tooth to alter its colour, shape or length, and either can close small gaps or disguise mildly uneven teeth. Seen from a few feet away, a good composite veneer and a good porcelain veneer can be hard to tell apart.
The real differences sit inside the tooth and play out over the years. Porcelain comes from a laboratory, holds its colour and shine for a long time and normally needs some enamel taken away. Composite is shaped by hand in the chair, preserves more of your natural tooth and costs less today, but it wears and stains sooner. In most cases the choice comes down to two things: how long you want the result to last, and how much of your tooth you're prepared to alter to get it.
The Two Compared
| Feature | Composite | Porcelain |
|---|---|---|
| How it's made | Built up on the tooth by hand | Crafted in a dental laboratory from a 3D scan |
| Enamel taken away | Little or none | Usually a thin layer, for good |
| Visits | One or two | Around three, across three to four weeks |
| Appearance | Natural when new; may dull | Glassy, the nearest match to enamel |
| Stains | Absorbs tea, coffee and wine over time | Highly resistant |
| Typical life | Three to five years before refreshing | 10 to 15 years, often more |
| If it chips | Normally mended in one visit | Normally replaced with a new veneer |
| Fee per tooth | £395 | From £695 |
These are guide prices, and your written plan confirms your own. 1
See Both Looks Before Choosing
A digital design is part of your smile consultation, with a trial smile where it's useful.
What Each Does to Your Natural Tooth
We'd always start here. Composite is normally bonded straight to the enamel. Now and then a sharp edge is smoothed or the surface lightly roughened to help it grip, and most people manage without an injection. Often, if you had second thoughts later, the composite could simply be polished away.
Porcelain needs space. To stop the veneer looking bulky, the front of each tooth is usually trimmed by about half a millimetre while it's numbed. That can't be undone, and those teeth will need covering from then on. The design you approve guides each cut so that no more is removed than necessary, and teeth that are already small or sit further back may need very little.
How Each Wears and Repairs
Porcelain is hard and glazed, which is why it keeps its colour and surface lustre for ten years or more. The downside is that when it goes, it tends to go entirely: a crack or a large chip usually means making a new veneer from a fresh scan.
Composite is softer. Over the years it loses some of its shine, the edges can pick up stain, and small chips are fairly common, particularly along biting edges. In its favour, it can be mended. A chip can usually be smoothed and rebuilt during a brief visit, and when a whole set starts to look tired, a polish and top-up brings it back without starting over. So composite asks for attention more often, but each visit is less drastic.
Cost Today and Over the Years
On the day, composite is the less expensive way to treat a tooth: £395, compared with from £695 for porcelain. 1 When several teeth are involved, composite is also sold in packages with home whitening included, from £1,550 for four teeth to £3,950 for ten.
Stretch the view to ten or fifteen years and the totals draw closer, since composite typically needs several refreshes over the lifetime of one set of porcelain. If you want an unchanging colour for many years and accept some enamel loss, porcelain often turns out to be good value. If a smaller outlay now and more of your own enamel matter more to you, composite is usually the sounder choice. The dental plan doesn't discount either material. Our Lanark veneers cost guide sets out the totals.
Four Questions That Settle Most Cases
- Are your teeth very dark or heavily filled? Porcelain hides deep discolouration and old fillings more dependably, whereas composite would need building up thickly to cover them.
- Are your teeth healthy and mostly unrestored? Composite changes how they look while leaving nearly all the enamel in place.
- Do you clench or grind? Composite chips more readily but is simple to repair; porcelain is tougher yet can crack under heavy force. Either is protected by a night guard (£210).
- Are your teeth crowded? Straighten them first, usually with Invisalign. Both materials can then be thinner, and some people decide they don't need veneers after all.
Plenty of people begin with composite, get used to the new shape for a few years, and then switch to porcelain knowing exactly what they like.
Try the Result Before Deciding
Whichever way you're leaning, the new smile is designed from photographs and a 3D scan of your teeth, then shown to you as a trial smile fitted over them. There's no drilling and no glue, and it's removed before you go home. Altering the design at this stage costs nothing.
Design and trial smile are included in your treatment fee. For porcelain, the signed-off design doubles as the map for trimming each tooth. The trial smile guide explains what to look for while you have it in.
Looking After Either Kind
- Brush twice daily with a low-abrasion toothpaste, as whitening toothpastes can scratch composite
- Clean between your teeth each day, because gum trouble around the edges shortens the life of any veneer
- Come to your hygiene visits: that's when composite gets a polish and the margins of porcelain get a close look
- Keep your front teeth away from pens, ice, nutshells and packaging
- Neither material can be whitened, so lighten your own teeth before the veneers are matched
Our bonding aftercare guide has more on caring for composite.
Questions
This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.