Colour is a very important topic in dentistry. This month Alif Moosajee talks about how to get the right colour and lustre for your restorations.
Being able to match the colour of the restorations you make to the prevailing colour of the dentition is an important factor in trying to make the restorations you create ‘disappear’ into your patient’s smile.
The importance of lustre
We put a lot of emphasis on colour. But another important factor that we often ignore is the lustre of the tooth.
What I mean by this is accounting for how polished your patient’s teeth are. Then communicating that to the technician so that they can recreate that lustre in the restoration they fabricate.
The reason I find this so important is because an incorrectly polished restoration can really stand out against the natural dentition.
If we think about what happens in nature we can often find a patient’s teeth are slightly different colours from one tooth to the next.
However one thing that never happens is having a natural tooth that’s a different lustre.
Remember that patients will brush their teeth all together. They will eat with them all together. That’s why it’s impossible to have one tooth polished differently to the rest.
Be mindful of lustre and watch how your restorations will be elevated to another class.
For more on colour and also the important considerations of shade, please look at my Smiling Dentist video for this month all about colour in dentistry.
Catch previous digital dentist columns:
- Language
- Focus
- Treating children
- Understanding occlusion
- Gaining (digital) consent.
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