Hayley from Auckland — 8 Emax Press veneers to close a 20-year gap

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.

Hayley is in her late thirties, an Auckland marketing manager, and she has a habit her colleagues never noticed: in every group photo she turns slightly and smiles with her lips together. The reason is a gap between her two upper front teeth she’d had since her twenties — small, harmless, but something she’d spent twenty years editing out of pictures. An Auckland private clinic had quoted her around NZD 16,000 for a full upper veneer set to close it, and the number quietly ended the conversation every time she raised it.

She sent us six smile photos on a Sunday night, including one with her lips deliberately apart so we could see the gap she’d been hiding. We returned a written, itemised NZD quote within 24 hours: 8 Emax Press veneers at NZD 600 per tooth = NZD 4,800 (May 2026 Picasso price list, 1 NZD = 15,000 VND), with a 7-year warranty.

What she wanted to be sure of before booking

Her concern wasn’t fake-looking teeth — it was the opposite. From the post-trip survey: “My fear was that closing the gap would give me eight identical, too-perfect Tic Tac teeth. I wanted it gone, but I still wanted to look like me.”

So the pre-trip conversation was about proportion, not just price:

• Closing the diastema means the two central veneers are made marginally wider to fill the space. We explained how the width is balanced across the smile so it reads as natural, not stretched.
• Material: Emax Press, the same pressed lithium-disilicate used by the cosmetic clinics she’d been quoted by in Auckland.
• Preparation: 0.3 to 0.5 mm of enamel, conservative. We sent the Turkey teeth explained page so she could see what over-preparation on healthy teeth actually does.
• Recourse: a written warranty, travel reimbursement if a re-do is ever needed, and a New Zealand follow-up care note for her own dentist.

She booked her flights about a month out.

The 10-day trip

The day the gap disappeared in the temporaries was the moment she remembers most. “I went back to the hotel and took a photo with my lips fully apart — first one in twenty years. I almost didn’t recognise the bottom half of my face.”

What it cost end-to-end

Against an Auckland benchmark of NZD 12,000 to NZD 20,000 for a comparable 8-veneer case, the gross saving was NZD 7,200 to NZD 15,200, and the net saving after travel was NZD 3,750 to NZD 11,750.

She took 6 days of annual leave; the trip overlapped a weekend on each end.

The thing she didn’t expect

In her words: “I expected to fuss over the colour. I didn’t expect the width of the two front teeth to matter so much. When I first saw the temporaries, the central teeth felt a touch too dominant — not wrong, just loud. I said so, they took them back the same week and narrowed them by a fraction, and that tiny change was the difference between ’nice teeth’ and ‘my teeth’.”

We’ve added a note to the pre-trip pack telling diastema patients to expect a width-tuning step. Real patient stories like this one are how we find those gaps.

What aftercare looked like back in Auckland

Hayley booked her NZ follow-up before she flew, so it was locked in. Her own dentist checked the bite about 5 weeks after the trip and signed the case off; we received the report and filed it. She’s since had one 6-monthly clean, no issues, with the next check already in the calendar.

Hayley’s three pieces of advice

From her survey response:

1. “Send a photo with your lips wide apart, not your usual social-media smile. The thing you hide is exactly what they need to see to quote and plan it properly.”
2. “Don’t rush the temporaries. The whole point is to try the new shape on for size before it’s permanent — speak up about anything that feels off, because once you’re home it’s a flight to change it.”
3. “Budget the leave honestly. I treated it as a real recovery-and-design week, not a holiday with appointments squeezed in, and being relaxed made every decision easier.”

See also

• Veneers pillar — the protocol, materials, and NZD pricing.
• Veneer care tips — what Hayley was told for home maintenance.
• Auckland to Vietnam dental travel page — local benchmark and route logistics.

Request your own free NZD veneer 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.