A plain shell, or a shell with a tooth inside it
The plain version is the retainer on its own, $139 an arch. The pontic version is the same shell with a replacement tooth set into it and shaded to the row around it, $239 an arch.
Up to three teeth can go into one shell. People order it while an implant site heals or while they decide what to do about a gap, because the shell covers the space and stops the teeth beside it drifting into it at the same time.
This version is built for the wait. It covers the gap and holds the row while the money and the healing take the time they take.
When a flipper beats an Essix with a tooth
The shell wraps healthy teeth as well as the gap, and it is thin because holding a position is all it has to do. It is not built to take a day of chewing, day after day, for years.
For a tooth you need in every day, the piece that carries it is a flipper. Acrylic from $319, sitting on the gum with small clasps rather than wrapping the whole row. The three of them are on the flipper page, and four and more teeth gone on one arch is a partial from $399.
After braces, after Invisalign, after a lost retainer
- Straight out of braces and nothing missing, the plain shell at $139 an arch holds what you already paid for
- Out of clear tray treatment, the same $139 shell keeps the result from walking back
- A retainer lost or cracked, $139 replaces one arch and $209 replaces both
Teeth start drifting the week a retainer stops going in, and they drift fastest in the first months after treatment ends. Your mold stays on file for two years, so a second shell usually needs no second kit from you.
Eating, drinking and how many hours a day
Out to eat, every single time. A shell this thin splits under a bite, and a hot drink softens it out of the shape it was cut to.
Water is fine with it in. Coffee, tea, soda and wine are not, for the heat and for the stain both.
How many hours a day depends on how long ago your treatment ended. Full time at first and nights later on is the ordinary pattern, and the practice that straightened your teeth is the one to ask for your own schedule.
Cleaning, discolouring and cracking
Rinse it the moment it comes out, brush it gently with a soft brush and no toothpaste, and keep it in water while it is out of your mouth. Toothpaste scratches the surface, and a scratched shell is the one that clouds over.
Cloudiness comes from plaque left to dry on it, and from coffee and tobacco. Cracks come from biting down on it, from boiling water and from a pocket. The cleaning foam is $24.99, the UV case is $29.99 and the ultrasonic bath is $54.99.
A cracked shell is replaced rather than repaired. Inside 60 days a fault in the build is ours to redo. Grinding hard enough to split one is a different piece altogether, and that is the night guard page.
Your mold, at your own table
- The mold kit ships inside the price and reaches you by USPS in 3 days or FedEx overnight.
- You take the impressions at home, send the photos we ask for, and mail the trays back with the prepaid label.
- A technician reads the mold and the shell is cut in 3 to 4 business days.
A mold that comes back short gets an answer saying what went wrong with it. A fresh kit is $40, a fresh set of putty on its own is $25, and the step by step is on the impression page.
