Porcelain Veneers

Porcelain veneers are a long-term treatment that involves reshaping a thin layer of enamel, so they’re not reversible, but they’re designed to be a lasting investment in your smile.

Porcelain doesn’t respond to whitening gels, but professional cleaning and polishing can keep them radiant.

Porcelain is highly resistant to stains, unlike natural enamel or composite resin. Coffee, tea, and wine won’t dull their brightness, though regular polishing helps maintain their pristine finish.

Absolutely not. That’s a common misconception. At Altura, our approach is preservation-focused. We keep your natural teeth almost entirely intact. Only the minimum amount of enamel is reshaped to allow integration with your porcelain veneers. Your teeth remain strong, healthy, and very much your own.

Yes. When crafted with precision, porcelain veneers can look indistinguishable from natural teeth. At Altura, every design considers your facial proportions, skin tone, and the way light interacts with your smile, ensuring lifelike, seamless results.

Porcelain veneers are incredibly durable. Research shows over 90% remain in excellent condition after 10 years, and many last well beyond 15 years with good care. Regular check-ups, a nightguard (if you grind your teeth), and gentle maintenance help preserve their longevity.

Preparation done on the teeth depends on the current position of your teeth and whether any camouflage is being conducted to change the positions of the underlying teeth. In an ideal tooth setup, it is very little. Modern veneer techniques are minimally invasive, often removing less than 0.3–0.5 mm of enamel (about the thickness of a contact lens). This gentle contouring ensures your veneers sit seamlessly and naturally on the teeth, without appearing bulky or artificial.

Not at all. The process is gentle and comfortable, performed under local anaesthetic if needed. Most patients describe the experience as smooth and surprisingly easy.

Porcelain veneers offer a smile transformation in both colour, size, shape, to achieve ideal smile parameters, something whitening or bonding alone can’t always achieve.

While whitening simply brightens your existing teeth and bonding repairs isolated areas (mainly the bottom 30-40% of your tooth), porcelain veneers redefine proportion, symmetry, and overall harmony, creating a smile that looks naturally flawless and stays radiant for years.

You can enjoy nearly all the same foods you always have. Porcelain veneers are incredibly strong once bonded and can handle normal eating comfortably.

We simply recommend treating them as you would natural teeth. Avoid using them to bite hard objects like ice, nuts in their shell, or opening packages. With mindful care, you can eat, smile, and live freely without restrictions.

Both porcelain and composite veneers can beautifully transform a smile. The difference lies in material, craftsmanship, and longevity.

Composite veneers are sculpted directly onto your teeth in a single visit and are ideal for subtle, accessible improvements. Porcelain veneers, on the other hand, are individually crafted by master ceramists, offering superior durability, lifelike translucency, and stain resistance. They’re the more refined, long-term option, a true investment in lasting beauty.

Porcelain veneers cover only the front surface of the tooth, preserving as much natural structure as possible, it’s more like a thin shell that sits on the surface, much like a contact lens for your tooth, subtle, precise, and transformative. Crowns, by contrast, encase the entire tooth and are used when teeth are heavily worn, cracked, or previously restored much like a helmet. 

If your teeth are healthy and strong, veneers are a more conservative and aesthetic option, offering beautiful results with minimal alteration.