How to get a winning smile

Britain has long had a reputation as a dental disaster zone. But a new treatment - with Catherine Zeta-Jones as its poster girl - is changing all that. Sarah Duguid opens wide

Britain has never enjoyed a reputation as an international centre of excellence for dentistry. What we do enjoy is poking fun at the disarming glow-in-the-dark smiles of our Californian counterparts.

But now a London-based dental practice, Dentics, is hoping to persuade us otherwise. They want to start making us take our smiles a little more seriously, and have introduced a treatment known as the "mouth manicure", a kind of introduction to cosmetic dentistry that, as the name suggests, they hope will make us see getting our teeth done as commonplace as getting our nails done. There are two versions of the manicure (the standard at £100 and the deluxe version, including chemical teeth-whitening, at £599), which are both then tailored further to suit individal patients. Their client list is already varied, and includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, numerous City bankers and a smattering of glamour models. "The glamour models go for the glitzy, very white smile," explains the dentist Oliver Harman. "It's the T and T look. Tits and teeth. Our banker clients have very different requirements."

I opt for the standard version, and hestitantly lower my decidedly un-Californian, caffeine-addled, red-wine stained self into the chair. A poster opposite me flags up the fact that Dentics has featured on the TV series Extreme Makeovers and I begin to panic that I am going to come out with the fluorescent, toothy look of an American news anchor.

Before patients visit the hygienist for the manicure bit, Harman carries out an examination looking for signs of trouble. "It is not about Day-Glo teeth," he reassures me. "People see our teeth as they would an Impressionist painting. They may not notice minor imperfections and small faults. They see lights and darks and colour. Even just getting the stains removed from your teeth and having them subtly whitened can make a big difference. People will notice subliminally that you look better."

Although it costs more than a visit to an average dentist, Harman says that's because it takes a longer. "I don't see a separation between dentistry and cosmetic dentistry. Fifty per cent of my clients are foreign because they don't trust British dentists, some of them are just so bad. For a filling, I might use four different colours and that way, the filling just disappears into the tooth."

As Harman then takes me down the corridor to see the hygienist, Rumana, he concludes: "You would benefit from teeth-whitening. They are slightly yellow anyway, and the fact that you are blonde and have very little red in your skin makes them seem even yellower." I smart at his frankness.

The mouth manicure treatment starts with some purple liquid painted onto my teeth that will show me how my brushing is letting me down. Next, they are scraped down with a metal hook and high pressure-washed. Then the hygienist says those words everyone visiting the dentist dreads: "This may be a little sensitive."

And with that she produces the "Prophyjet". It's the dental equivalent of a sandblaster and it emits an exfoliating mix of water and calcium carbon particles. "It's quite messy," Rumana warns understatedly, and explains that it will blast off any stains and will reach into the most remote areas of the teeth. Five minutes later, I'm covered in a fine mist of water, coughing chaotically with the taste of salt and lemon in my mouth.

Since the mouth manicure is about a fresh, socially acceptable mouth, next we move on to the tricky issue of bad breath. A breath tester appears in front of my mouth and I am told to exhale quickly. I score a two, which is average, apparently. Rumana produces a circle of plastic with a long handle to clean my tongue. "This may make you gag," she says, as she holds my tongue in one hand, and scrapes with the other. Next, she brushes away the food remains and bacteria that she says lurk on everyone's tongues with a "tongue gel".

With that, the session is over, and it has been one that puts my usual dentist to shame. I have had places cleaned that I didn't even know needed cleaning. I have downedmore than two cups of pink mouthwash, testament to Rumana's thoroughness.

At home, I decide to test out my new teeth. I stand in front of my boyfriend, grinning like a fool, to see if he comments on my kissable new look, but he just asks why I'm being weird. As Harman says, the results of good dentistry are only ever appreciated subliminally.