Emma from Hamilton — 6 Emax Press veneers for childhood tetracycline staining

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.

Emma is 29, a Hamilton graphic designer who spends her days making other people’s brands look polished. The grey-brown bands across her own front teeth had been there since childhood — tetracycline staining from an antibiotic course she was given as a kid — and no whitening toothpaste had ever shifted them. She had learned to smile with her lips closed in team photos and to tilt away from phone cameras. A Hamilton private clinic had quoted her NZD 9,000 to NZD 15,000 to fix it with veneers, and that number had sat untouched in her notes app for the better part of a year.

She sent us six smile photographs on a Sunday. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 6 Emax Press veneers at NZD 600 per tooth = NZD 3,600 (May 2026 Picasso price list, 1 NZD = 15,000 VND), with a 7-year warranty.

What she was actually worried about before booking

From her post-trip survey: “Whitening had never done a thing for me, so I half-expected to be told veneers wouldn’t work on staining this deep either. And the designer in me was terrified of ending up with six identical white tiles that didn’t match my face.”

The pre-trip conversation focused on exactly that:

• Material: Emax Press, a pressed lithium-disilicate ceramic. For tetracycline staining the question is opacity — a veneer has to mask the band underneath without going flat and lifeless. We explained where Emax Press handles that well and where deeper banding might need a more opaque option or an extra unit.
• Preparation: 0.3 to 0.5 mm enamel reduction, conservative. We sent the Turkey teeth explained page so she could see why grinding healthy teeth down to pegs is the wrong way to chase shade.
• Count: 6 teeth — only the ones that show when she talks and laughs. We talked her out of a fuller arch she didn’t need.

She booked the flight two weeks later.

The 10-day trip

The temporaries phase mattered most to her. “I assumed the colour was locked in once I’d picked it. It wasn’t. I went back and asked them to take it half a shade warmer and they just did it. That’s the bit nobody tells you about.”

What it cost end-to-end

All figures in NZD. Picasso pricing at 1 NZD = 15,000 VND (May 2026).

Against the NZD 9,000 to NZD 15,000 benchmark a Hamilton private clinic had quoted her, the gross saving was NZD 5,400 to NZD 11,400, and the net saving after travel was roughly NZD 1,900 to NZD 7,900.

She used 6 days of annual leave; the trip overlapped a weekend at each end.

The thing she didn’t expect

In her words: “I’d braced myself for the procedure. What threw me was how fast I stopped thinking about my teeth at all. Within about two weeks the new ones just felt like mine — and then I noticed I’d let someone photograph me at a friend’s dinner without doing the closed-lip thing, and I only clocked it scrolling through later. Twenty years of editing myself out of photos, gone, and I didn’t even feel it happen.”

Real patient stories like this one are how we learn what actually changes for patients after they fly home.

What aftercare looked like back in Hamilton

Emma’s final bite check was at her own NZ dentist 5 weeks after the trip — booked before she flew, so it was confirmed. Her dentist reviewed the occlusion, checked the margins, and signed off the case. We received a copy of the report and added it to her file. She was fitted for a nightguard locally and wears it as prescribed.

She has had one 6-monthly hygiene visit since, clean, with the next already scheduled.

Emma’s three pieces of advice

From her survey response:

1. “Get the staining properly diagnosed first. Tetracycline doesn’t whiten out — knowing that saved me years of buying products that were never going to work, and it told me veneers were the honest fix, not a vanity upgrade.”
2. “Use the temporaries week to fight for the shade. I’m a designer and I still nearly accepted teeth that were too white. Live with them, take photos in your own bathroom light, then ask for the change.”
3. “Only veneer the teeth that show. Six covered everything I’d ever hidden. A full-arch package would have cost more, removed more healthy tooth, and changed nothing I could actually see.”

See also

• Veneers pillar — the protocol, materials, and NZD pricing.
• Veneer care tips — what Emma was told for home maintenance.
• How long do veneers last — longevity by material.
• Hamilton to Vietnam dental travel page — local benchmark and route logistics.

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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.