Veneers and Smile Design in Koramangala, Bengaluru

The plan matters more than the porcelain

Veneers go wrong in a predictable way. Eight identical teeth, all the same length, all the same flat opaque white, sitting in a face they do not belong to. Everyone recognises it instantly, including the person wearing them.

That is not a materials problem. It is a planning problem, and it is decided before any tooth is touched.

So the first appointment here is an assessment, not a preparation. We photograph your smile, look at where your upper teeth sit against your lower lip when you talk, how much gum shows when you smile properly, how wide the smile is, and how your teeth relate to the midline of your face. Then we build a mock-up directly on your teeth so you can see the proposed shape and length in a mirror, in daylight, before anything is irreversible.

If you do not like it, we change it. That stage costs nothing and it is the entire difference between a good case and a bad one.

Closing a gap, which is often a single appointment

A gap between the upper front teeth, a diastema, is one of the most common reasons people first ask about veneers, and it is worth knowing that it is frequently the easiest thing on this page to fix.

If the gap is small and the teeth either side are healthy and well positioned, composite bonding closes it in one appointment. Tooth-coloured composite is built directly onto the adjacent edges, shaped, cured and polished. Nothing is drilled away, nothing goes to a lab, and you walk out with it done. It is also reversible in the sense that there is nothing to reverse: the tooth underneath is untouched.

If the gap is wide, closing it with material alone makes two very broad front teeth that look wrong, and the honest answer is to move the teeth first with aligners or braces, then finish with bonding or veneers if anything remains. Where a gap has opened because of gum disease and the teeth have drifted, the gums get treated first, because material bonded onto a moving tooth does not stay put.

Which of those three your gap is, is a five minute conversation with a mirror at the assessment.

Esthetic rehabilitation, when it is the whole bite

Not every case is a cosmetic one. Sometimes a patient arrives with front teeth worn flat, back teeth that have lost height, and a bite that has collapsed a few millimetres over twenty years of grinding, acid erosion or simply age. The face looks shorter than it used to. Chewing has become less efficient. Individual teeth are chipping.

That is esthetic rehabilitation, and it is a different order of planning from a veneer case. It means restoring the vertical height of the bite and then rebuilding every worn surface, usually with a combination of onlays on the back teeth and veneers or crowns on the front, worked out on models and mock-ups before any tooth is prepared and staged across several appointments.

It is also squarely inside Dr. Chaitanya’s own speciality. Conservative dentistry and endodontics is the postgraduate subject concerned with rebuilding natural teeth, and full-mouth rehabilitation sits at the far end of it. If the grinding that caused the wear has not been dealt with, a night guard is part of the plan rather than an afterthought, because a rebuilt bite handed back to the same habit wears down again.

If this is what you are dealing with, the first appointment is longer than usual and nothing is prepared on the day.

What it costs

We quote the whole case in writing after the assessment, rather than a price per tooth. The reason is in the last paragraph of this section. First, the choice that moves the figure most:

• Composite veneers are sculpted directly onto the tooth in the chair and finished the same day. Lower cost, no lab, repairable if chipped, and they pick up stain at the margins over five to seven years.
• Porcelain veneers are made at a lab from an impression, tried in and then bonded. Better optically, far more stain resistant, ten to fifteen years, two appointments.

The number that actually matters is not per tooth. A smile makeover is normally six to eight upper teeth, because doing two and leaving the neighbours creates exactly the mismatch you were trying to fix. A per-tooth price sounds reasonable and then quietly multiplies by eight, which is how people end up feeling misled by a figure nobody actually lied about. So we quote the case, in writing, after the assessment, and we price the composite and the porcelain versions of it side by side.

Enamel is the thing to protect

A veneer bonds to enamel. Bonded to dentine it holds less well and it holds for less long. Enamel on a front tooth is under a millimetre thick to begin with.

That gives a simple rule we hold to: if the case needs so much tooth removed that we are into dentine, it is not a veneer case. Either it wants a crown, or it wants orthodontics first to move the tooth into a position where a conservative veneer will work, or it wants nothing at all.

Cutting healthy front teeth down to stumps to install a uniform smile is common, quick and profitable. It is also irreversible, and those teeth will need replacing every fifteen years for the rest of the patient’s life. We will not do it, and we will say so at the assessment rather than after you have paid a deposit.

Whitening first, in most cases

A fair number of people who ask about veneers want lighter teeth, not different teeth.

If the shape is fine and the alignment is fine, a cleaning and a course of whitening costs a fraction of veneers, takes two appointments, and removes nothing from the tooth at all. We will tell you when that is the answer. And if you do go on to veneers afterwards, the sequence matters anyway: whiten first, then match the veneers to the new shade, because porcelain does not bleach.

Teeth jewellery

We also place tooth jewellery, which is a small bonded crystal on a front tooth. It is bonded, not drilled, it comes off without damage, and it is a genuinely reversible bit of fun rather than a dental treatment. Ask at any appointment.

Where we are

Tooth District is in S.T Bed Layout, Koramangala 4th Block, on Koramangala 1st Main Road off 80 Feet Road. If you are planning for a wedding or a shoot, come in six to eight weeks ahead. That leaves room for a cleaning, whitening if it is the better answer, and the veneers themselves without anything being rushed.