The Complete Handbook of Dappen Dishes

Chapter 1: Understanding Dappen Dishes

Walk into any dental operatory, and you will see one. It sits near the patient's head, cradled in a stainless steel arm or balanced on the tray setup. It is a small, cup-like vessel, rarely holding more than a few milliliters of liquid or powder. You may know it as a Dappen dish, a dappen pot, a dappening glass, or simply a "mixing dish." By any name, this seemingly mundane piece of glassware or plastic is central to the daily act of dentistry — more central than its cost or its visibility might suggest.

A Dappen dish is a shallow, thick-walled vessel with a pronounced well in its center. That well is the entire point. The well holds a small quantity of medicament, bonding agent, etchant gel, or powder, so that a clinician can access it with a brush, an applicator tip, or a mixing spatula without having to open the original manufacturer's packaging each time. The dish is placed directly in the working area, within arm's reach of both the operator and the dental assistant. Its design is deceivingly simple, but the engineering that goes into a good one — the choice of glass versus plastic, the angle of the well, the thickness of the base — has a direct effect on material performance and on the workflow of the entire dental team.

The dish dates to the early part of the twentieth century, when it was developed as a standard vessel for holding