Veneer Regret Is Real. Here’s What’s Causing Buyer’s Remorse.

The veneer regret Sarah experienced with her first set may be due to the ceramicist used by her previous dentist. “Not everybody has access to the same ceramicist,” Dr. Rubinov tells Allure. “Very few doctors have access to my ceramicist because of the volume that I do, and he only works on a handful of accounts.” The relationship he has with the artist, he says, is what allows him to have a more hands-on approach to the aesthetics of his signature smiles. This is also the majority of his work; a patient’s family dentist, however, may not do as many veneer cases as a cosmetic dentist like Dr. Rubinov, so he or she doesn’t have the same access to a highly skilled ceramicist who can handcraft a bespoke smile.

The gold standard for veneers is porcelain, a glass-like material that ceramicists shape layer by layer. Composite resin is more malleable and easy to sculpt (and can be up to 50% cheaper), but it’s more opaque and doesn’t last as long. It does have a time and place, though, specifically for dental work in a transition phase. “For instance, composite is ideal for a teenager whose jaw and teeth are still developing,” says Dr. Victoria Veytsman, a cosmetic dentist based in New York City, “or for a patient in the middle of a complex, multi-stage treatment plan who needs a temporary aesthetic improvement before upgrading later.”

While not all dentists are able to have a master ceramicist on call, it’s hard not to be seduced by the potential money to be made in the big business of veneers. “It’s sexy, it’s rich, it’s expensive,” Dr. Rubinov says. “Everybody wants to do veneers.” But unless you’re going to a dentist who does them on a daily basis, caveat emptor.

Bespoke veneers as the new status symbol

Among the dentists Allure spoke with, most revision cases involve previous sets of veneers applied with an outdated one-size-fits-all technique, where a set of veneers is made in a lab without taking each patient’s very specific features into account. “That process involves manufacture, but it doesn’t involve design,” Dr. Jethwa says.

That’s exactly what happened to Dr. Rubinov’s patient Sarah. “Temporaries weren’t done, it didn’t follow the same steps that Dr. [Rubinov] had,” she says. “I was a bit naive and I didn’t do enough homework on how to go about this…. I was kind of along for the ride instead of helping direct it.”

Many high-end practices now prioritize facial harmony and, as Dr. Jethwa says, design. Before the artistic process begins, these dentists tell us, an in-depth consultation needs to happen. For Dr. Marashi, his first order of business is to identify the exact problems the patient has with their teeth. He requests photos of their original smile and asks them what, in their opinion, a successful revision would look like. “Everyone’s interpretation of beauty is different,” he explains.

Dr. Lipari takes a similar approach. “I tend to use a lot of the original characteristics of the person’s teeth in redesigning the new teeth, unless the patient is telling me that they absolutely hate how their teeth look to start off with,” he says. “Then we can obviously pivot from there.”