
When to Consider Veneers Over Teeth Whitening

You want a smile that lights up a room, but discolored or stained teeth are causing you to fall a little short of this goal.
The good news is that there are several roads toward pearly whites that sparkle when you smile, and the team here at Peninsula Dental Excellence offers them all. When it comes to cosmetic dentistry, Dr. Colin Au and Dr. Jeff Yoshihara are pleased to provide the tools, services, and products you need to improve your smile.
Here, we look at two of our more popular options — at-home teeth whitening and dental veneers — to help you determine which is best for your smile goals.
The power of whitening
There’s a good reason teeth whitening is a nearly $2 billion industry in the United States — it’s one of the most effective ways to improve your smile.
Our take-home professional teeth whitening kits uses professional-grade bleaching products that can lighten your teeth by many shades and gradually whiten your teeth over a few weeks. We make custom trays for your teeth that you will hear from anywhere from 2 to 10 hours in the comfort of your own home.
This solution is great for teeth that are yellowing with age, which occurs when your enamel begins to wear down. When your enamel thins, it allows the brown dentin on the inside of your teeth to show through more, creating the yellowing effect.
While our at-home professional teeth whitening kits are highly effective for naturally yellowing teeth, they can’t tackle certain issues, such as:
- Blackened teeth
- Fluorosis — white or brown staining from too much fluoride
- Antibiotic (tetracycline) staining
Also, some patients are more sensitive to bleaching, so this approach to whitening teeth may not be appropriate.
Dental veneers to the rescue
We can turn to dental veneers if you have tough stains that don’t respond to professional teeth whitening or are sensitive to bleaching. With this treatment, we place wafer-thin shells over the fronts of your teeth that give you the white, bright smile you’ve dreamed of.
Dental veneers not only tackle the issues we mention above that professional teeth whitening struggles to address but they can also:
- Hide chips and cracks
- Make your teeth look a little longer
- Close gaps in your teeth
- Cover up misshapen teeth
Dental veneers go far beyond teeth whitening as they can cover up several different imperfections in your teeth, making this treatment a true smile makeover.
If you’d like to figure out which treatment will work best to improve your smile — at-home teeth whitening or dental veneers — please contact our Mountain View, California office to schedule a consultation today.
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