MAC Veneers
Chief complaint:
Dr. Hall, I am interested in porcelain veneers, so I did some research and found
different types: Lumineers, Da Vinci, and
MAC veneers. My question is, which types
out in the market nowadays have an excellent results? Thanks you.
—Marjorie from New Jersey
Marjorie,
Thank you for your question. You're going to think I'm giving you a kooky
answer, but I'll explain it below. The answer is that all the porcelain
veneers that you mention give beautiful results and all of them give
crummy results.
Let me give you a similar question. Which artistic material produces the
most beautiful paintings: watercolor, oil, or acrylic? The answer is the
same: all of them are great and all of them are crummy. There are
profoundly beautiful pieces of art done with oil, and there are profoundly
ugly pieces of art done with oil. Likewise for each of these veneers you
mention.
I strongly recommend against asking your cosmetic dentist to use a particular
brand of porcelain. Besides straining your relationship with that dentist, you
are quite possibly going to be pushing your cosmetic dentist out of his or her comfort
zone. Creating a new smile is an art. Let artists choose their
materials, the ones they are comfortable with. All the different materials
have different properties, and getting the most out of them requires some
experience with that material. Also, most cosmetic dentists have a close
working relationship with a particular laboratory technician, and the
technician and dentist make a team. They understand each other and work as
a team to create beautiful results.
MAC Veneers
Having said that, let me tell you a little more about MAC veneers. This
is a name given to porcelain veneers produced by a particular dental
laboratory, MicroDental. Several years ago, MicroDental created a division
where they put their best cosmetic technicians and called it the Micro
Advanced Cosmetic Division. Yes, they do beautiful work. They're
advertising now to the public, and the ads, as you can see on the right,
are very appealing. But there are many other excellent cosmetic dental
laboratory technicians who don't work for MicroDental. And I believe this
is the largest such lab, so they are accurate to say that more cosmetic dentists use their laboratory than any
other. But that statement is deceptive, because there are thousands of
laboratories, and many first rate ones, and it's only a small minority of
cosmetic dentists who use MicroDental. |
A print advertisement for
MAC veneers. |
They use pressed ceramic for their veneers. Yes, they look beautiful.
And they're strong. But they are also considerably thicker than other
veneers, and I don't believe they are more beautiful than, say,
feldspathic porcelain. When I was in practice and I had a case that called
for pressed ceramic, I would usually send it to MicroDental, because they
were very good with that material. But most of my work was with
feldspathic porcelain because I felt that worked best for most cases.
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