The teeth color chart is the layman’s term for the VITA classical shade guide which your dentist uses to pick out your tooth color. This is important because this color guide is used for the color selection of your dental veneers, crowns, implants, dentures and tooth fillings.
Without it, we would have a hard time matching any of the restorations in your mouth to your adjacent teeth. Therefore it is important that you know what this is and how to use it.
Of course, we’ll bombard you with photos of every one of the tooth colors so be prepared for photos galore.
What the letters and numbers mean
The shades from the VITA classical guide are labeled with a “letter” followed by a “number”. The letter and number combination refers to a specific color.
What each letter means:
- The A shades have a reddish-brownish tooth color.
- The B shades have a reddish-yellowish tooth color.
- The C shades have a grayish tooth color.
- The D shades have a reddish-grayish tooth color.
What each number means:
- The lower the number, the lighter or whiter the shade. (Number 1 is the lightest)
- The higher the number, the darker the shade. (Number 4 is the darkest)
Putting it all together
All of the tooth shades with the same letter but different numbers are all part of the same color family. The different numbers will determine how “light” or “dark” each one is.
Example: A1 vs A4
- Both tooth shades have a reddish-brownish color to them since they’re part of the A color family.
- The A4 is darker than the A1 since it has a higher number. You can call the A1 “whiter” than the A4.
Example: B2 vs B3
- Both tooth shades have a reddish-yellowish color to them since they’re part of the B color family.
- The B3 is darker than the B2 since it has a higher number. You can call the B2 “whiter” than the B3.
A shades teeth color
The A shades are a reddish-brownish tooth color and there are a total of 5 different shades.
A1
A2
A3
A3.5
A4
B shades teeth color
The B shades are a reddish-yellowish tooth color and there are a total of 4 different shades.
B1
B2
B3
B4
C shades teeth color
The C shades are a grayish tooth color and there are a total of 4 different shades.
C1
C2
C3
C4
D shades teeth color
The D shades are a reddish-grayish tooth color and there are a total of 3 different shades.
D2
D3
D4
Alternative teeth color charts
VITA also manufactures a different tooth color chart called the VITA toothguide 3D-master with bleached shades. The naming system is different but the most prominent difference is the inclusion of the bleached tooth shades.
The photo below shows what this shade guide looks like.
The teeth colors are mostly redundant with the classical shade guide so what we’re going to focus on are the bleached shades, otherwise known as the hollywood whites.
Hollywood whites
The three bleached tooth colors:
- 0M1 – The whitest shade bleached color
- 0M2 – Second whitest bleached color
- 0M3 – Third whitest bleached color
If you get your teeth to any of these three shades, you can consider yourself to have extremely white teeth. These colors are so white that they are actually unnatural because you can’t get to this level of whiteness unless you bleach them or get porcelain veneers.
Bleached shades vs A4
It may be a little hard to appreciate just how white these teeth colors are. It helps if you compare it to one of the darkest tooth colors, A4.
I believe we can all agree that without a shred of doubt, these bleached shades are incredibly white. Whiter than paper if we dare say!
As you may have guessed, these shades are very popular as veneer colors because everyone loves having white teeth.
So, what color are your teeth?