This is the other question that comes up almost as often as which kit to buy. You get to the shade options and suddenly you're staring at letters and numbers with no idea what they actually look like on a real person.
So let's cut through it.
What the shades actually mean
A1, A2, A3, A3.5, and A4 are part of a standard dental shade scale, and the letter-number combos aren't random. The “A” just means it's in the reddish-brown family, which covers most natural tooth colors. The number is where it gets useful — it tells you how light or dark that shade is. Lower numbers are lighter, higher numbers are darker. That's really the whole system.
A1 is the lightest of the bunch, close to a bright, clean white. A2 sits right in the middle and is what most people would call a natural white — it's actually our most ordered shade by a good margin. A3 is a touch warmer and slightly deeper than A2, and A3.5 continues that same direction, just a bit more so. A4 is the darkest option we carry, more of a deep ivory tone.
So how do you actually pick?
Honestly, the easiest way is to look at your own natural teeth, or teeth you remember having, and compare. Most people are somewhere between A2 and A3 without realizing it — true bright white (A1) is less common than you'd think outside of whitening treatments.
If you're not sure, here's what I usually tell people: A2 is the safe default. It's natural-looking on the widest range of people and it's what the majority of our customers end up choosing anyway. If you know you tend to run warmer or your natural teeth were on the deeper side, go with A3.
A mistake people make
Don't pick based on what looks best in a photo online. Screens shift color more than people expect, and a shade that looks perfect on your phone can look different in person. If you genuinely can't decide between two shades, A2 is almost always the one to go with — it's forgiving and blends in naturally for most skin tones and lighting.
What if you get it wrong? It happens, and it's not the end of the world. Reach out and we'll help you sort out an exchange for the individual teeth. It's a lot easier to sort out than people assume going in.
Shop teeth in all available shades →
