Mrs. Hartley's Smile Makeover in Hanoi: 20 Zirconia Veneers for $7K vs $24K in Perth

Mrs. Olivia Hartley had lived with a smile she described as "always slightly off" for most of her adult life.

The crowding was not dramatic enough to have been corrected with braces as a teenager, but noticeable enough that she had avoided wide smiles in photos for years. A slight misalignment made the upper teeth sit at odds with the lower. And a gradual discolouration, the kind that accumulates quietly across decades of coffee and red wine, had taken away whatever brightness had been there to begin with.

Her Perth dentist's assessment was straightforward: 20 zirconia veneers across both arches would resolve the alignment, the crowding, and the colour in one go. The quote came back at $1,200 per unit. Twenty units. $24,000 AUD.

Mrs. Hartley did not say no outright. She just never said yes.

Looking elsewhere

A colleague at work mentioned she had been to Hanoi the previous year for veneers and had come home with a result she was still happy with. Mrs. Hartley asked her for the details, then spent a few evenings doing her own research before contacting SmileJet.

She sent through her photographs and a brief description of what she wanted changed. The clinic in Hanoi responded with a digital smile design preview showing the proposed alignment correction, a shade guide conversation, and a clear timeline: everything done in a single trip of under ten days.

The price: $350 AUD per unit. Twenty units. $7,000 AUD total.

Ten days in Hanoi

Mrs. Hartley arrived on a Saturday and spent the weekend settling in before her first appointment Monday morning.

The first session covered digital scans, shade selection, and the smile design sign-off. She was shown the proposed tooth positions on screen and asked to approve them before a single tooth was touched. Once she confirmed she was happy, preparation began: minimal shaping on the teeth that needed it least, slightly more on the ones that were most crowded or misaligned.

Temporary veneers were placed the same day. Even the temporaries straightened the visual line of her smile noticeably.

"I sent a photo to my daughter from the clinic bathroom. She rang me immediately. She thought I had already had the final ones done."

The lab returned the final zirconia units mid-week. Two fitting sessions followed to verify shade, contour, and bite before the permanent cementation on day eight.

Twenty units, upper and lower, bonded in place.

The numbers

• Hanoi, Vietnam: $350 AUD per unit, 20 units, $7,000 AUD total
• Perth, Australia: $1,200 AUD per unit, 20 units, $24,000 AUD total
• Difference: $17,000 AUD on the treatment alone

Return flights from Perth, nine nights of accommodation, and daily expenses added to the cost. The total still came in at well under half the Perth quote.

Back in Perth

Mrs. Hartley's Perth dentist reviewed the work at her next routine check-up. The margins were clean. The bite was sound. He asked which clinic she had used.

She has since referred two friends to SmileJet.

"The thing nobody tells you is how quickly you stop thinking about it. You come home, you show everyone, and then it just becomes your smile. That is the part I did not expect. It stopped being a thing I had done. It just became normal."