What would you recommend for shade matching?
Plastic and porcelain shade guides are inherently inaccurate and in the majority of cases are not made from the same material as the composite you are using. StyleItaliano have developed My Shade Guide which enables you to produce your own shade guide from the material you are using, guaranteeing an accurate shade match. It’s a fantastic tool and enables your to make your own tabs with and without enamel giving you flexibility with layering.
Below: My Shade Guide
That makes sense! Can you talk us through the system?
We always recommend before any restorative procedure to use White Dental Beauty whitening materials. This is the best foundation for a more aesthetic result leading to a more iridescent colour of tooth which can simplify the restorative procedure.
We have 5 body shades which we refer to as the 5 shades of white. The 5 body shades range from Si0 to Si3.
To give you an idea of the shades, the most similar to the vita shade guide are the SI 1, 2 & 3 although having a more opalescent effect and a higher value, they would be most similar to A1, A2 & A3. With traditional composite systems most companies, as you are probably aware, are now offering bleach shades. Often with the bleach shades is there is not enough gradients in the value, so they are jumping from a zero shade which is almost like a toilet bowl white to B1 or A1 and there is nothing in the middle.
What you will notice with our product is we have specifically calibrated the shade SI 0.5 which gives a smooth transition between SI 0 and SI 1 giving you the ideal variety for higher value aesthetic cases.
Often when we are building a tooth in composite, it can be difficult to achieve the desired result when we apply enamel, as when the enamel is too thick it can appear to grey and if it is too thin, the restoration can be too opaque . However, what you will notice with CompoSite is that body shade colours have enough opalescent value to give a more natural effect.
StyleItaliano CompoSite in use:
How much enamel should you use?
With our system it is quite simple. If an older patient with either worn incisal edges or just from day to day habits, has thin enamel due to age, we don’t want to use an enamel shade. Often, providing the shade and form are correct; we only need to use one body shade with this system, really simplifying the technique. However, with a younger patient who requires a little more brightness, we have E shade (Enamel) which really takes up the colour of the body material for a natural appearance.
The consistency and ingredients in CompoSite make it easy to handle and mould as well as being incredibly easy to polish adding lustre and vitality.
What about darker teeth?
Many times, we have a dyschromia in the tooth, where the tooth is very dark. Traditionally we have had to complete 2 or 3 layers to mask out the darker shade which in some cases involves over prepping the tooth.
We now have a product to tackle this issue – the Masque material. It does what it says on the syringe and masks out those discolorations giving a higher value of opalescence and fluorescence within a very thin layer. The benefit of this product is that it can be used in any composite system.
Do you have anything suitable for base/lining?
Yes, we have an interesting product called Multiplo. This is a universal material which is slightly more viscous than normal flowables.
It complements the colours in the system to be used for linings, in depth cavities, and class 5 amongst other things.
How would you tackle posterior restorations?
With our CompoSite P product. This is a unique posterior material which can absorb the natural colours in the tooth, meaning you only need one shade for all of your posterior cases.
You will notice that the handling properties and working time are ideal to enable you to model the anatomy prior to curing, saving you time and minimising the finishing steps.
To browse all of StyleItaliano's case studies click here, or alternatively choose to view one of the following CompoSite case study topics: No Prep Direct Composite, Closing Diastemas, or Smile Makeover
Pictured above: CompoSite P posterior use by StyleItaliano's Murad Akhundov
White Dental Beauty CompoSite and White Dental Beauty teeth whitening gels are both available exclusively from Optident.