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Product Profile: LSK121 Chairside Shade Guide

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LSK121 Chairside Shade Guide
Seasons of Life will eliminate guesswork.

A decade ago, Luke Kahng, CDT, a technician for more than 20 years, first began researching the difficulties of shade matching because re-makes are frustrating for everyone – the dentist, the patient and the lab. He came up with some interesting conclusions about natural dentition and how to properly re-create its appearance. His motivation was based on the realization that traditional shade tabs are merely a guide, limited when it comes to communicating natural dentition’s characteristics and modifications. This led him to consider a more accurate method of communication between the patient, the clinician and the lab about color, the blueprint to successful restorations.

As a result, the concept of the Chairside Shade Guide came into production in 2009. In 2010, a debut of an updated version was presented. With continuous research toward improving the product, they are able to introduce the current ceramic shade tabs. The color formulas for these shade tabs have been researched, developed and carefully recorded by Mr. Kahng.

The Chairside Shade Guide Seasons of Life versions 3.0-5.0 are a series of porcelain ceramic shade tabs that match natural tooth colors as well as the existing dentition. In graduating from laminated commercial paper to ceramic shade tabs, it offers a more realistic color reproduction because the materials are equal. Guesswork regarding your final shade, including all modifications, is a thing of the past. And because these tabs are porcelain they can be sterilized after each use. The Chairside Shade Guide ceramic shade tabs are divided into different categories, with 20 tabs in each grouping. It has taken into account the following preferences:

Chairside Shade Guide 3.0
Cosmetic (six colors), Young (14 colors)

Historically, precise cosmetic color guidelines have not been available. What is accessible is not what patients want. They prefer bright color with translucency, light with warm tones. The tabs are created with that in mind. The 3.0 categorization concentrates on a higher opacity and brightly colored appearance which translates into more dentin and less enamel in its content. The enamel color is bright (white) and medium-white, covered together in natural dentition’s chemistry. There is also a higher composition of dentin with enamel overlay in this group. Opal, translucency, and variations of white calcification, different colors of mamelon and bright enamel with higher dentin are all included.

Chairside Shade Guide 4.0
Middle Years (20 colors) includes variation and 20-30 percent reduction of color in enamel.

Included are three white calcification possibilities and a variety of translucency with mamelon, demonstrating lower enamel and higher translucency color.

Chairside Shade Guide 5.0
Later Years (20 colors)

In this age group, the dentin color is intense in appearance, with transparency over the top. Brown, orange, gray and yellow are the color choices – subtle, moderate and heavy, with varying degrees of strength. These modifications and possible staining must be included if we are to have a matching restoration.

Communication is Key to Successful Restorations
Good communication improves case acceptance because patients value the time and effort that the dentist takes to educate them about their case. Natural color, translucency, transparency, bright color, cosmetic and rehabilitation cases are all difficult to discuss if they do not have the proper communication tools. These shade tabs can be used to help the clinician explain color variation with translucency. And the more a patient knows about his case, the better informed he feels, which leads to a sense of understanding and empowerment.

How The System Is Used
This revolutionary approach tracks different dentin and enamel colors by re-creating the layering thickness in order to mimic natural dentition, deep translucency, the mamelon effect, white calcification and opal blue coloring. The precise components and dentin/enamel combinations create incisal translucency with modifications, duplicated precisely according to the research conducted with natural dentition, and the appropriate age group it represents. This system incorporates modifications such as enamel overlay and dentin color, incisal edge, halo, translucency, transparency, bleaching color, mamelon and calcification and gives them to you in one shade tab. You will never have to guess which modifications to add to the restoration because everything is already included.

Enamel presents with many variations in color – orange, gray, brown and yellow are some of the more common possibilities. In order to mimic natural dentition, they have mixed the colors to create the complexity, tone and depth of color seen within natural teeth. Detailed attention has been paid to the internal dentin color, the incisal edge, the gingival-third staining and the translucency or transparency, as dictated by age, the indepth research and what is seen in the patient’s mouth. It is able to offer a true repetition of life-like enamel colors.

Consider your patients’ natural dentition. There is not one set of teeth that looks exactly like another, but there are common modifications that we see from patient to patient. Frustration when it comes to discussing color is common, because we have not had the tools with which to work. The shade tabs are meant to help with patient/doctor/ technician communication in a way that nothing else has before. These shade tabs are based completely on the theory behind custom shade matching and are each overlaid with different enamel colors so that they harmoniously match with natural teeth. The uniquely blended Chairside Shade Guide shade tabs take in-office custom shade matching to a whole new level!
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