Veneers in Beirut, designed before they're made.

What a veneer fixes — and what it doesn't

Veneers are the right tool for chipped or worn edges, stains that whitening can't shift (old fillings, tetracycline, fluorosis), small gaps, mildly crooked or short teeth, and mismatched shapes after years of patching. They are the wrong tool for teeth that are badly broken down (those need crowns), for teeth with active decay or gum disease (treat first), and for significant crowding — a veneer can disguise a slightly rotated tooth, but straightening with aligners first often means thinner, longer-lasting veneers, or none at all.

Emax (e.max) porcelain vs composite

We use e.max for most porcelain veneers because of its strength-to-thinness ratio — it lets us remove less enamel. Composite is the honest choice for a single small chip, for younger patients whose teeth are still changing, or where budget means the alternative is doing nothing.

What Emax actually is

Emax — properly IPS e.max, and sometimes written e-max — is not a technique or a machine. It is a brand name, owned by the Swiss manufacturer Ivoclar, for a ceramic called lithium disilicate. That distinction matters when you are comparing quotes: a clinic advertising "Emax veneers" is telling you which ceramic the laboratory will press, and nothing at all about who designs the smile or how much enamel they intend to remove. Those two things decide whether the result looks like teeth or like a row of tiles.

What makes lithium disilicate the usual choice for front teeth is a combination of two properties. It is translucent in a way that resembles enamel, so light passes into it rather than stopping at the surface. And it can be etched with hydrofluoric acid, which lets it be bonded chemically to your enamel rather than merely cemented in place — the bonded join is a large part of why a well-made veneer can be under a millimetre thick and still last.

Emax vs zirconia veneers

This is the comparison patients ask about most, usually after being quoted both. Zirconia is a different ceramic — zirconium dioxide — and it is substantially stronger. Typical flexural strength runs around 900–1,100 MPa for zirconia against roughly 360–400 MPa for lithium disilicate. Put that way it sounds decisive, and for a molar crown or a long bridge it often is.

For thin veneers on front teeth it usually is not, because raw strength is rarely what fails. A bonded front veneer is supported by the tooth underneath it; what breaks veneers is an unmanaged bite, grinding, or a bond that was never dry when it was placed. Against that, zirconia carries two disadvantages at the front: it has historically been less translucent, and it cannot be etched, so it relies on MDP-based primers rather than the acid-etch bond that lithium disilicate gets. Multilayer zirconia has narrowed the appearance gap considerably, and controlled trials comparing the two over three years still tend to favour e.max on aesthetics and translucency for anterior cases.

So the short answer: for veneers on visible front teeth we use Emax in almost every case. Where a patient grinds heavily, or the work extends onto back teeth, zirconia earns its place — and we will say so rather than push one material because it is the one we happen to stock.

The process, in two visits

• Examination, photographs and X-rays. We check that every tooth to be veneered is healthy, and that your bite will not destroy the result. Whitening, if wanted, happens before veneers, so the shade can be matched to the new colour.
• Design and mock-up. The new shape is built on a model and then transferred into your mouth as a temporary preview. You look at it in a mirror, in daylight, and change what you don't like — before a single tooth is touched.
• Preparation (visit one). Guided by the mock-up, a very thin layer of enamel is removed only where needed — sometimes nowhere. Temporaries protect the teeth while the laboratory works.
• Fitting (visit two, about two weeks later). Each veneer is tried in, checked for colour and fit, and bonded under rubber-dam isolation so the bond is dry and permanent. The bite is checked and polished.
• Review. A short check a couple of weeks later, and a night guard if you grind.

Veneers or a Hollywood smile?

The difference is scope. "Veneers" usually means one to six teeth, matched to your natural neighbours. A Hollywood smile is a full redesign of the visible upper teeth — typically eight to ten veneers — where shade and shape are chosen freely because every visible tooth is being changed. Many patients who ask for a Hollywood smile need four; a few who ask for two need eight. The mock-up settles it.

What sets the price of veneers in Lebanon

e.max porcelain veneers start at $250 per tooth; composite veneers start at $60. Those are starting figures, not quotes — a veneer price given before an examination is a guess. These are the factors that move your case above the starting point:

The examination itself is $20, and it is deducted from the cost of treatment if you go ahead — so if you are treated here, the examination has cost you nothing.

What you get instead of a number online: a written, fixed, per-tooth quote after your examination, naming the material — and a mock-up you approve before anything is made.

A real case from this clinic

Chipped, uneven and discoloured front teeth, rebuilt into an even, brighter smile line; and an alignment and shade correction. Both are this clinic's own patients in Beirut, published with written consent — more in the case gallery.

Lumineers, prepless, CEREC — what the other names mean

Search for veneers in Lebanon and you will meet a wall of names: Lumineers, prepless veneers, CEREC veneers, composite veneers, e.max. They sound like five different treatments. They are not. Three of them describe the same two decisions — how much enamel is removed, and where the veneer is made.

• Lumineers is a brand, not a technique. It is one company's ultra-thin porcelain veneer, bonded with little or no enamel removal. Other laboratories make comparable ultra-thin veneers without the trademark.
• Prepless or no-prep veneers describe that same approach generically: almost no enamel touched, and reversible in principle. The catch is that they only suit teeth that are already slightly small or set back. On teeth that protrude, adding a layer without removing one makes them look bulky — and no brand name changes that.
• CEREC veneers are milled from a ceramic block by a machine in the clinic, often in one visit. Fast, and genuinely useful. The trade-off is that a milled monolithic block cannot reproduce the layered translucency a ceramist builds by hand, which is most of what makes a front tooth look like a tooth.
• Composite veneers are sculpted directly onto the tooth in one appointment. More affordable, repairable, and good for four to seven years.
• e.max porcelain is layered by a ceramist in a laboratory over two to three weeks, and stays colour-stable for ten to fifteen.

We work with a laboratory ceramist rather than a chairside mill, because for front teeth the ceramist's hand is what we are paying for. Where a case genuinely suits minimal or no preparation, we will say so at the examination — and where it does not, we will tell you that too, whatever name the treatment is being sold under.

Common questions