Veneer Color Chart: Natural & Bleached Tooth Shades

The veneer color chart is used to select a tooth shade for the porcelain that your dental veneer will be made of. Once your porcelain laminate has been made, the color will be unchanging because it will stay that color until you replace it.

Therefore, the consequences of choosing the wrong color can affect your smile for years to come. Of course it may be difficult to make such an important decision in a split second at your dentist’s office.

That is why we’ll provide you with the laminate color chart so that you can choose from the comfort of your own home. Feel free to stare at all of these images for as long as you need.

Veneer color chart

The dental veneer color chart below is arranged from the whitest tooth shade on the left to the most yellow color on the right.

Below are two close up photos to give you a better idea of what they look like.

The two images above use the popular VITA shades but an alternative veneer color chart would be with the BL shades by IVOCLAR. Below is a veneer color chart with the BL tooth shades ordered from whitest on the left to the darkest on the right.

The whitest veneers would be in the colors BL1 or 0M1. Those two are the lightest color possible that you can get for your porcelain laminates.

Explanation of the colors

The color chart for dental veneers includes the natural tooth shades as well as the bleached tooth shades. Of course the bleached colors are whiter than the all natural ones.

Below we’ve listed each of them in descending order from the whitest to the darkest.

B1 tooth color is the whitest natural shade followed by A1 which is the second lightest.

Of course, both A1 and B1 are darker than the darkest bleached shade which is 0M3. The whitest bleached tooth color is 0M1.

Full color spectrum

However, we do want you to know that we did simplify the color chart to make it easy for you to understand. There are actually many more colors that you can possibly choose from for your porcelain veneer.

Below are the rest of the natural tooth colors that you can select for your porcelain laminates.

The VITA classical shade guide shown above, organizes the colors with a letter followed by a number.

• The letter indicates the color family.
• The number indicates how light or dark the shade is.

What the letters mean

• A shades = reddish-brownish
• B shades = reddish-yellowish
• C shades = grayish
• D shades = reddish-grayish

What the numbers mean

• The lower the number, the whiter or lighter the color is.
• The higher the number, the darker or more yellow the color is.

As an example, A1 is whiter/lighter than A2, A3, and A4. On the other end of the spectrum, D4 is darker/yellower than D3 and D2.

Alternative shade guide

The VITA classic is one of the most commonly used but they also have a 3D master shade guide which breaks down the colors into further categories.

You will be using whatever your dentist has in their office because if that’s what they have then that’s what they have.

Color comparison examples

To give you a better idea of what all of these colors look like on a dental porcelain veneer, we’ll show you a couple of color comparisons. We’ll compare a couple of colors to a veneer that was made in the shade A1.

Prepare for photos galore. We’ll start with the darkest shade A4 and end with the whitest 0M1.

Comparison without tooth model

We also took photos with the porcelain laminate on its own without the stone model.

Video comparison

We’ve also created a video to show you some of the color comparisons.

Color selection tips

Before you even begin to choose a color for your new veneer, we highly recommend teeth whitening. There are two reasons to do so.

• You want to know what is the lightest shade your teeth can get.
• The veneers are very thin and if your teeth are naturally dark, the darkness can show through the thin piece of porcelain

After you’ve finished bleaching your teeth, now you can proceed to select a color.

Tips for color selection:

• If you’re doing a single veneer, we highly recommend trying to match the adjacent teeth.
• If you’re doing a full smile make over, you can go about 2-3 tooth shades whiter than your natural teeth.
• Check the color under the dental operatory light but also in natural lighting.
• If you look at all of the tooth shades for a long period of time, they will all start looking the same. In other to refresh your eyes, you should look at a blue object and then resume looking at the tooth shades.

If you’re unsure, you can always ask your dentist what they think would be best.

Takeaway

Hopefully that gives a better idea of what the veneer color chart is so that you can be confident in picking the right color for you. If you’re unsure about the color you should take your time to think about it before you proceed with the procedure.

Move forward once you’re sure because you can’t change the color afterwards without replacing the entire veneer.

Remember the old adage? Measure twice so you only have to cut once.