So I'm at a party, talking with this socialite, but I'm not really listening, because I'm mesmerized by her teeth. This is a woman who is old enough to have a few teenage children, but those teeth - wow! They twinkle like a toothpaste ad. So enraptured am I that, despite my better judgement and upbringing, I blurt out, "You have the most amazing teeth. Are they …real?"

"Yes, they are," the socialite tells me, quickly changing the subject. And I believe her - until one of my friends tells me he spied her photograph in the waiting room of a big shot New York cosmetic dentist. Those pearly whites, it turns out, were veneers.

That's what I was thinking about as I sat in the waiting room of Marc Lowenberg, DDS. Dr. Marc, as I call him, is my regular, cavity-filling, plaque-removing dentist. He and his partner Gregg Lituchy, DDS, also happen to be in-demand cosmetic dentists with a celeb-studded practice on Central Park South. But this time I wasn't there for a cleaning.

For the first time in my life, I was considering a smile makeover. In a few months, I was going to be cohosting A Girl's Guide to Swell Movies, a new TV show on Showtime's Women channel. It's just a couple of minutes onscreen at the beginning and end of each flick, but you know what they say: The camera adds 10 cavities.