The Hollywood smile of 10 years ago is not what patients are asking for anymore. Dr. Kooper Ruminer, a 2021 dental school graduate who opened a cosmetic-focused startup practice in Oklahoma City in May 2025, has a phrase for what they want instead: quiet luxury. Teeth that look genuinely excellent without announcing themselves.
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Kevin Henry sits down with Ruminer for a candid conversation about building that kind of practice from scratch, and what it actually takes to get there.
Dr. Kooper Ruminer.
Ruminer knew from his years as an associate that if he wanted to practice cosmetic dentistry the way he envisioned it, he could not layer it onto an existing model. The building, the environment, the staff culture, the brand -- everything, in his view, needed to be centered around hospitality from the start. His logic is simple: It is hard enough to get patients through the door for dentistry they need. For elective cosmetic work, the experience has to earn their trust before any clinical conversation begins.
His approach to that clinical conversation is deliberate. Before he discusses veneers or any restorative work, he takes close-up photographs and puts them on a large screen in front of the patient. Nothing, he says, humbles a patient quite like seeing their teeth at that scale.
Dr. Kooper Ruminer discusses smile options with a patient.
From there, the conversation becomes collaborative -- what do they like, what do they dislike, what does the photo they brought in actually show compared to their current smile.
The intent with an in-depth discussion isn't to correct the patient if their expectations are unrealistic; it is to find a path to a design they will genuinely love.
Facial balancing is central to Ruminer's treatment strategy. His philosophy is that a great cosmetic result should look like something the patient could have had -- their own teeth, just better.
That means reading the face before designing the smile: looking at proportions, jaw structure, and how the smile fits the overall picture, not just how it looks in a close-up photo.
He is equally direct about the no-prep debate. He will take 1/4 mm of enamel if it means the final result is right, because doing it right the first time is worth more than saving enamel just to say the case was no-prep.
Dr. Ruminer practices at 405 Dental Aesthetics in Oklahoma City. Follow him at @doctorkooper and @405.dental on Instagram and at 405dentalaesthetics.com.
Listen to the full conversation below.
