The Smile Makeover
Journey.

The Consultation

Two hours, by appointment only, in our consultation suite — no operatory, no scrub-room sounds, no clinical lighting. We begin with a conversation. What do you not love about your smile when you see yourself in a photograph? What have you avoided saying yes to because of it?

Then we move to the facial photography session: twenty-six images shot under standardized lighting, including in repose, in conversational smile, in full smile, and in profile. These become the canvas the design is built upon.

Digital Smile Design

Camille, our Digital Smile Design specialist, takes a high-resolution 3D intra-oral scan and overlays it onto your photography in DSD Pro software. We then begin a sculptural design process — adjusting tooth length, gold-ratio proportion, central-incisor dominance, gingival display, and the subtle asymmetries that read as natural rather than printed.

You return one week later for the design reveal. We sit together at a large monitor, and we make adjustments in real time. Most patients ask, at this stage, why nobody has shown them this before.

The Wax Mockup

The approved digital design is milled in wax onto a stone model of your dentition by our master ceramist in Pasadena. Dr. Fontaine reviews every aspect — the slight rotation of the lateral incisors, the depth of the embrasures, the warm translucence reserved for the incisal third — and refines by hand. Three to five iterations per case is standard. We do not mill anything in porcelain until the wax is perfect.

The Trial Smile

One of the most extraordinary appointments in cosmetic dentistry, and one most practices skip. The final wax design is transferred onto your teeth in temporary composite — without preparation, without anaesthetic, without commitment. You walk out wearing the smile.

You take it to dinner. You photograph it in your kitchen light, your office light, beside your husband, beside your mother. We schedule the next appointment 72 hours later. By the time we reconvene, you know — viscerally, not theoretically — whether the design is yours.

Preparation & Provisionals

Under microscope magnification, Dr. Fontaine performs the minimally invasive preparation — typically 0.3–0.5mm of enamel reduction, the thickness of a fingernail — and bonds the laboratory-fabricated provisional restorations directly on your approved design. You will live with the provisionals for two to three weeks while the final porcelain is layered by hand at our master ceramist's atelier. The provisionals are themselves beautiful. Many patients keep them photographed alongside the finals.

The Bonded Final

The final restorations — porcelain veneers, full-coverage crowns, or some bespoke combination — are bonded in a single morning appointment. Dr. Fontaine reviews margins, occlusion, and the harmony of the smile in dynamic motion. We photograph the result under our standardized lighting for your before-and-after record.

Then we turn the mirror.