Again under Dr. Marc's advisement, I asked friends and colleagues what they thought of my smile. "It's…fine," I heard, over and over. Not a single "great," "adorable," or even "really you" - just "fine." I started wondering about all the suspiciously fantastic smiles out there. It felt like the time I went from dark hair to blonde highlights and discovered something brunettes never notice: All blondes I'd taken for granted were, in fact, various degrees of bottle-blond.

Concerned that Rick be happy with the work I was about to have done, Dr. Marc invited him to my next appointment to help design my smile, using bits of composite (a putty molded onto the teeth) and black marker. I lay in the chair surrounded by the two dentists, Rick and Jason Kim, the ceramist who makes the porcelain veneers that cover your old teeth.

"I beg you not to do this!" Rick pleaded later that night. I countered that his anti-fake beauty argument was flawed by the fact he preferred me with highlights and straight hair, even though my au naturel look is curly and dark. "But that's not permanent!" he wailed.

Resolutely, I went in the next morning for the big procedure. Dr. Marc creates a dentist's-office-cum-day-spa vibe to help patients through the trauma of having their teeth shaved down (how close a shave, I didn't want to know).