Tag Archives: cleaning porcelain veneers

Porcelain Veneers

Peroxide on Porcelain Veneers

If I used a DIY mouthwash which included peroxide, would it damage my porcelain veneers? It’s important to me they’re well cared for (as well as the rest of my mouth). If I can’t use that, what can I use?

Tamara

Dear Tamara,

A single porcelain veneer being placed on a tooth

It’s great that you want to take care of your oral health as well as your porcelain veneers. With great care, they can last a lifetime. To answer your question, a mouthwash which contains peroxide won’t harm your porcelain veneers. However, depending on the frequency of use, it could harm you.

The occasional use of hydrogen peroxide will be beneficial. Regular use, say for a week or two, will lead to an imbalance of the microorganisms in your mouth. When that happens, you’ll develop a painful oral yeast infection. So, if you do want to do it, don’t do it too many times close together. Spread it out quite a bit.

Taking Care of Porcelain Veneers

If using a mouthwash is important to you, there is one particular ingredient in a mouthwash you’ll want to avoid. Don’t use anything that contains alcohol. The reason for that is it will eat away at the bonding on your porcelain veneers. This will lead to them falling off.

There are plenty of mouthwashes on the market which will be safe to use. Just check their ingredients list for alcohol and you’re good to go.

The most important thing you can do is have regular oral hygiene at home and keep up with your dental checkups to keep your teeth and gums healthy.

I usually recommend cosmetic patients use Supersmile Toothpaste. It’s specifically formulated to clean cosmetic dental work.

One other thing to be careful of has nothing to do with you. When you go in for your regular appointments, make sure your hygienist doesn’t use anything like a prophy jet during your cleanings. This will take the glazing off your porcelain veneers.

When this happens, you lose the protection for your veneers and they will start picking up stains very quickly. Bleaching them will be completely ineffective because teeth whitening only works on natural tooth structure.

This blog is brought to you by Louisiana Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Mike Malone.

Porcelain Veneers

Cleaning porcelain veneers

Are there special rules for cleaning porcelain veneers? I’m worried the dental hygenist can break them or pull them off when cleaning them.

Dorothy B- Nevada

Dorothy,

They won’t get pulled off or broken. However, they can be damaged or chipped. The hygienist of an expert cosmetic dentist will know what to avoid while cleaning them. If you are not able to go to an office that has an expert cosmetic dentist, here are some guidelines to give any hygienist and  you’ll be fine.

  • Don’t use any power polishing equipment, such as Prophy Jet. This is the worst thing that can be done to your veneers. Though they get teeth clean very quickly, it will take the glaze off of your veneers. Your hygienist won’t realize that she’s damaged them because they will look fine at the end of the appointment, but the moment you get home they will begin to stain and will never look good again.
  • Using an ultra-sonic or heavy duty manual scalers can chip the edges. I do realize sometimes they need to use scalers. Just make sure when they do, they know not to scrape hard on the margins.
  • Don’t use any coarse polishing pastes. Make sure they use an ultra-fine polishing paste with aluminum oxide grit, never pumice.
If you make sure of these things, your porcelain veneers should look like new for many years.
This blog is brought to you by Lafayette Cosmetic Dentist Dr. Mike Malone.