Successful shade matching of restorative materials has long been a challenge to clinicians. Dentine determines 95% of the colour of a tooth, and only 5% the enamel, so it’s the dentine shade that plays the major role in determining overall tooth colour.
Shape and surface texture are also very important in the aesthetics of the final restoration and determining the correct shade is dependent on several things including lighting conditions and the eye and skill of the clinician.
Over recent years many different shade guide systems have been developed, with the VITA Classical shade guide probably being the most widely used. Arguably there are now too many shade combinations and simply knowing the correct colour will not necessarily provide a perfectly matching restoration. It can also be impractical to try to combine multiple shades and layering techniques within the time constraints of scheduled appointments in a busy practice.
In natural teeth, different colours are distributed through the dentine and enamel, and in addition to hue, chroma and value there are the attributes of translucency and fluorescence. The primary source of tooth colour is dentine, and almost all dentine in a vital, healthy tooth falls into red-brown-yellow range. The chroma is where the tooth colours vary and is influenced primarily by dentine, as well as the translucency and thickness of the enamel. The value indicates the level of whiteness or darkness.
Simplifying the process
The challenge to clinicians and manufacturers is colour matching a synthetic restorative material to a natural living tooth. SDI’s aura is the result of a five-year collaboration with international materials and tooth restoration experts designed to simplify everyday shade matching requirements and produce life-like restorations with ease. aura is a premium light cured, radiopaque, composite restorative system that adopts a systematic and scientific approach to shade arrangement by combining an easy layering technique with colours based on the natural make-up of enamel and dentine.
The aura system has just 8 dentine shades (Db, DC1 – DC7) and 3 enamel shades:
- E1: Young or bleached teeth
- E2: Adult teeth
- E3: Senior teeth
aura is designed for easy handling, strength and durability. It allows excellent sculptability with no sticking of the instrument to the composite. The unique combination of a hybrid dentine with an enamel layer reinforced with pre-polymerised micro fillers allows fast polishing to a long-lasting high gloss.
The aura system provides a variety of composites to satisfy all clinical situations. As patients’ interest in aesthetic dentistry continues to grow, clinicians need to deliver even higher levels of patient satisfaction in the shortest amount of time. The advance of restorative materials combined with simplified, quick and aesthetically-pleasing colour selection processes is making this not only possible, but a certainty.
To find out more about SDI’s aura product range CLICK HERE or to place an order or book a FREE “Lunch & Learn” CLICK HERE
