Dental veneers are a versatile cosmetic dentistry tool suitable for applications ranging from covering cracks or chips to resizing overly large or small teeth. Traditional veneers involve filing away at the exterior of the tooth so that the veneer cap can be bonded to the front surface of the natural tooth. If the idea of a dental drill makes you queasy, there is a no-drill alternative called either no-drill veneers or ultra-thin veneers.

Is a no-drill veneer right for your treatment situation? Only your family and cosmetic dentistry professional can answer that question. But there are some pros and cons of both the no-drill and traditional veneers that you should consider before discussing the options with your family and cosmetic dentistry specialist.

Fastest, Easiest Treatment: No-Drill Veneers

Both the no-drill and traditional veneers require the dentist to fabricate an artificial porcelain tooth cap before the day of application. No-drill veneers lessen the treatment time on application day due to the lack of drilling. But your dentist also won't have to waste time administering local anesthetic, then waiting for the anesthetic to kick into effect. No drill means no potential pain and thus no need for anesthetic.

The no-drill veneers can also prove faster and easier for your dentist to attach since less bonding cement is required. That's because the veneer is significantly thinner than the traditional veneer and thus doesn't require as much cement to support its weight.

Most Durable Treatment: Traditional Veneers

The thinness of no-drill veneers can also mean that the veneers are less durable than the traditional variety. Porcelain is stronger than some other dental materials like resin, but not as strong as unnatural-looking metals that are used in fillings. The thinness of the porcelain can make the no-drill veneers susceptible to cracking or coming loose due to trauma or excessive, repeated bite force due to chewing hard foods.

Traditional veneers also have the stability of the extra bonding cement and the fact that the cement attaches better to a rough surface, such as a drilled or filed down tooth, than to the flat surface of a tooth.

Most Versatile Treatment: Traditional Veneers

Porcelain is used for dental veneers because the material can replicate the slight translucency of natural teeth. Thinner veneers are even more translucent. So no-drill veneers aren't able to cover as wide a variety of issues as successfully as traditional veneers due to the possibility of the problem still peeking through the porcelain.

No-drill veneers can't fix overly large teeth or teeth that have significant chipping since those teeth need drill work to change the size or smooth the jagged edges, respectively.