Hannah from Dunedin — 10 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.

Hannah is a Dunedin scientist in her late thirties who measures things for a living. Precision is her whole job, and her own smile was the one thing she had never been able to make symmetrical. It was not one tooth — it was the overall arrangement: a couple of short, rounded upper teeth, a gap that had widened over the years, and a midline that drifted slightly to the left. She had reshaped it in her head a hundred times and never liked what she started with. An Dunedin private clinic had quoted her around NZD 20,000 for the comprehensive reshaping she wanted across her upper teeth. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 10 Emax Press units at NZD 600 per unit = NZD 6,000 (May 2026 Picasso price list, 1 NZD = 15,000 VND), with a 7-year warranty.

How we designed the smile

A makeover is not a tooth count — it is a single design across the whole arch. From her post-trip survey: “I came in thinking about individual teeth I disliked. The Portrait Sitting flipped that. We talked about the whole smile as one shape.”

The design conversation covered the three things that bothered her:

• Material: Emax Press, a pressed lithium disilicate that can be layered for a natural, slightly translucent finish, the same family of material the Dunedin clinics had quoted.
• The midline and proportions: to correct the drift and even out the short teeth, the design had to balance length, width, and how the edges met her lower teeth when she spoke. We mocked it up first so she could approve the shape before anything was prepared.
• Preparation: conservative enamel reduction. We sent the Turkey teeth explained page so she could see why aggressive crown-prepping a whole arch is the wrong approach.

One tooth needed minor reshaping to seat its unit correctly. She approved the mock-up and booked her flight.

The 10-day trip

Between appointments she had real time off. She walked the lake at dawn before the heat, found a tiny shop that roasted its own coffee, and, by her own account, became mildly obsessed with bun cha.

What it cost end-to-end

Against the Dunedin benchmark of NZD 15,000 to NZD 25,000 for the same scope, the gross saving was NZD 9,000 to NZD 19,000, and the net saving after travel was NZD 5,000 to NZD 15,000.

The thing she didn’t expect

In her words: “What threw me was being handed a mirror at the mock-up stage and asked what I’d change. I got a vote. I’d assumed I’d turn up and accept whatever I was given, like a passenger. Instead I had to make decisions about my own face, and that was harder and better than I expected.”

We have added a note to the pre-trip pack flagging that the Portrait Sitting asks patients to commit to design choices — real patient stories like this one are how we find the gaps.

What aftercare looked like back in Dunedin

Hannah booked her own NZ dentist before flying, so the follow-up was confirmed. About four weeks after the trip her dentist reviewed the occlusion, checked the new units, and signed off the case. We received a copy of the report and added it to her file.

She has had one 6-monthly check since, clean, and her 12-month review is scheduled.

Hannah’s three pieces of advice

From her survey response:

1. “Insist on a mock-up before anything is touched. Seeing the proposed shape in my own mouth first turned this from a leap of faith into a decision. Don’t approve a design you haven’t seen.”
2. “Stop counting teeth and think about the whole arch. The moment I treated it as one design instead of a list of faults, I made better choices.”
3. “Plan the lab days as proper time off, not dead waiting. There is downtime between visits. I came home with a smile and a new coffee habit instead of a backlog of emails.”

See also

• Smile makeover pillar — the design process, materials, and NZD pricing.
• Veneer care tips — what Hannah was told for home maintenance.
• Dunedin to Vietnam dental travel page — local benchmark and route logistics.

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.