Comparison of different opaquer dental materials
Opaquer dental materials are made to block out dark metal in dentistry. As a result we often use dental opaquers for endodontic access on a crown that has metal like a PFM or on metal abutments for dental implants.
Comparison of 5 opaquer dental materials
My favorite opaquer for implant abutments is the BlueSkyBio product and my favorite opaquer for teeth is the Pentron product. The more yellow tone products are nice for teeth that you are not trying to make as white, so darker shades. Also the yellow works nice on PFM crowns that have very thin occlusal layer since the white tends to show through on these. The following products are cured on black paper.
First of all, it is impossible to say anything definitive from my unscientific tests. However, my guess is the order of whitest to darkest is whiteMetal then Flow-It and Creative Color close together followed by IPS and finally Clearfil.
The order of how well they actually opaque is also not possible from this test, however I did put four of them on a crown and cured it. The order here is….
- Creative Color Opaquer White
- IPS Empress Direct Opaque
- Clearfl St Opaquer
- whiteMetal Opaquer
The results are that they all work so it really comes down to what color are you trying to get to and how much room above the dental opaquer do you have to get to that shade?
Links to the 5 dental opaquer dental products
Flow-It ALC Flowable Composite by Pentron
Creative Color Opaquer White by Cosmedent
whiteMetal Opaquer by BlueSkyBio
IPS Empress Direct Opaque by Ivoclar
Cost of opaquer dental materials
All of these costs are for the year 2017 and are what we pay for a single syringe or container.
Flow-It ALC Flowable Composite by Pentron is
Creative Color Opaquer White by Cosmedent is $61.
whiteMetal Opaquer by BlueSkyBio is $55
IPS Empress Direct Opaque by Ivoclar is
Clearfl St Opaquer by Kuraray is