One of the criticisms of chairside dentistry has been the expected short life of the characterizations we place on our restorations. Sure it may look OK when the patient walks out the door but in a few months after a patient brushes their teeth enough you will end up with an ugly marble for a crown

"Surface stain doesn’t last."

Words that can scare the Dentist, at least the Dentist who is concerned with the esthetics of his work.

Here is a restoration that I evaluated when the patient was in for a recare visit recently. It was placed in 2009. The naysayers would predict it would look like a marble by now, as you can see the characterizations placed over 4 years ago are still present and the tooth still looks good

The claims of a short life of our characterizations has always puzzled me since we use a glaze when we characterize, a glass material that fuses with the ceramic substrate at their indicated temperature.  It fixes the stains and protects them. Sure it may not be thick and if a diamond touches the area the glaze will be removed instantly, but even after a patient returns for their prophy year after year, no negative effects can be seen. On our ceramics we do not use a light cured resin glaze material, which can easily be worn off through the bushing process over time.

The other part of the equation is we have a wide assortment of material with different properties, different translucencies and polychromatic blocks are available. By utilizing these we can get a restoration that looks fantastic even without the use of stain. But by spending a few seconds to augment the appearance with some stains can really bring it to another level. It not difficult, I just pick up tips from the instructors at the Scottsdale Center and some practice. As time goes on your skills will get refined. The other advantage to characterize as much as possible is to practice for when that single central comes in, no need to sweat it out. You can nail it with correct block selection and a touch of color, nothing more satisfying.

Surface stains don’t last………..

Wrong!

Your restorations will look better, your patients will benefit and you will get a tremendous amount of satisfaction by spending the time to customize the restorations you make. So don’t you wait to develop another skill set you can be proud of.

This looks like natural coffee stain on the crown....Do you have anymore pics of stain lasting? And isn't glaze more abrasive on the opposer vs no glaze/stain?