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.

First test without the fifth one but shows colors better.

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?