Anahera from Rotorua — 8 Emax Press smile makeover veneers

Real patient story, shared with permission. This patient has consented to Picasso Dental Clinic publishing their experience to help other New Zealand patients. Treatment, material, NZD price, and timeline are accurate to the case archive. Reviewed by Dr. Emily Nguyen, Founding Clinical Director.

Anahera is in her late forties, a Rotorua travel agent who spends her days booking other people’s escapes and almost never her own. Years of wear had left her upper front teeth uneven, dull, and chipped at the edges — and somewhere along the way she had trained herself into a closed-lip smile for every client photo and staff event. An Rotorua private clinic had quoted her around NZD 16,000 for a makeover across the upper smile zone, and she could not justify that on something she kept telling herself was vanity.

She sent us seven photographs one quiet afternoon between bookings. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 8 Emax Press veneers at NZD 600 per unit = NZD 4,800 (May 2026 Picasso price list, 1 NZD = 15,000 VND), with a 7-year warranty. Then, in her words from the post-trip survey, “I did what I do for clients every day — I built the whole holiday around it and booked it myself.”

What she wanted to get right in the design

A smile makeover is a design decision before it is a dental one, so the conversation started with how she wanted to look, not with drills.

In her words: “My fear was ending up with eight identical white tiles. I have a face that has lived a bit and I did not want a smile that belonged to someone twenty years younger.”

We worked through that on the Portrait Sitting day:

• Material: Emax Press lithium-disilicate — strong enough for everyday function, translucent enough to read as real enamel up close.
• Shade and shape: we matched the new veneers to her lower teeth and kept natural proportions and surface texture rather than a flat, uniform finish. We sent her the Turkey teeth explained page so she could see why over-aggressive preparation on healthy teeth goes wrong.
• Recourse: a written warranty, travel reimbursement terms if a re-do is ever required, and a New Zealand follow-up care note for her own dentist.

She approved the plan and booked her flights two weeks out.

The 10-day trip

The temporaries phase was the step she rated highest in the survey. “Being able to test-drive the shape for a few days, then change my mind, was the whole point. I would have panicked if they had gone in permanently on day one.”

What it cost end-to-end

Against the NZ benchmark of NZD 12,000 to 20,000 for an equivalent makeover, her gross saving was NZD 7,200 to 15,200, and her net saving after travel was NZD 3,450 to 11,450. As she put it, the gap more than paid for the holiday she had bolted onto the trip.

The thing she didn’t expect

In her words: “I had braced myself for a rough few days after the fitting — soreness, a strange bite, the worry that something would feel off once I was back in Rotorua. Instead the bite just settled overnight and within a day I had completely forgotten the veneers were there. After years of being conscious of my teeth, forgetting about them was the strangest part. Nobody warned me it could be that quiet.”

Honest survey notes like this one are how we keep refining the pre-trip pack we give patients.

Aftercare back in Rotorua

Anahera booked her first NZ check-up before she flew, so it was confirmed and waiting. Four weeks after the trip her own dentist reviewed the occlusion, confirmed the veneers had settled cleanly, and sent us a copy of the report for her file. We also gave her a written note of her exact materials and a nightguard recommendation. She has had one six-monthly clean since, all clear, with the next check already on the calendar.

Anahera’s three pieces of advice

From her survey response:

1. “Stop calling it vanity and run the numbers like you would any other trip. Once I saw the saving covered the flights and the holiday, the decision made itself.”
2. “Use the temporaries days properly — go for coffee, talk a lot, take selfies. That is how you find the small things to change before anything is permanent.”
3. “Have your New Zealand dentist booked before you leave. Knowing a Kiwi would check the result took the last bit of nerves out of it for me.”

See also

• Smile Makeover pillar — the design process, materials, and NZD pricing.
• Veneer care tips — what Anahera was told for home maintenance.
• How long do veneers last — longevity by material.

Request your own free NZD smile makeover quote

About this page

Medically reviewed by

Dr. Emily Nguyen

Founding Clinical Director, Picasso Dental Clinic

DDS · Founder and Clinical Director, Picasso Dental Clinic group

Clinical focus: Cosmetic dentistry · Veneers · Smile design

Dr. Emily Nguyen founded Picasso Dental Clinic in 2013 (originally Serenity International Dental Clinic) and led its 2023 rebrand. She sets clinical standards across the group's six branches in Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Lat, and personally reviews cosmetic protocols including the Portrait Sitting workflow for veneers and smile makeovers.

Last clinically reviewed

28 May 2026

Published by

Picasso Dental Clinic

Review policy

Every medical procedure page on this site is reviewed by a named Picasso clinician before publication and re-checked when pricing, materials, or protocols change. Source documents are linked at the bottom of each page.