Tallahassee, FL Cosmetic Makeovers
Smile Makeovers in Tallahassee, FL
Veneers, implants, Invisalign or whitening — whichever of them your smile needs, we can transform it into something you are proud of. A cosmetic makeover is not one procedure. It is a plan that puts the right treatments in the right order, so the result looks like your face rather than like dental work.
Patients usually come to us about one particular thing they have stopped liking:
- Teeth that have yellowed and no longer respond to whitening toothpaste
- Chips, worn edges or a tooth that has always been a different shape
- Crowding, gaps or a front tooth that sits out of line
- Old fillings or crowns that no longer match the teeth around them
- A missing tooth that shows when you talk
- A smile that looks gummy, uneven or too short for the face
Most of those have more than one answer, and the cheapest answer is not always the right one — nor is the most involved. We will tell you plainly what each option would achieve, what it would cost and how long it would last, and then we will do the one you choose. If you want to talk it through before booking anything, call us at 850-404-7462.
What a Smile Makeover Can Include
Your plan may use one of these or several of them together. Nothing here is compulsory — a makeover is built from whatever your smile actually needs.
- Porcelain Veneers — thin facings bonded to the front of the teeth, for shape, color and small alignment problems at once. They are the fastest way to change several teeth, and the shade, length and translucency are chosen with you before anything is made.
- Teeth Whitening — an Opalescence take-home kit with custom trays, so you whiten at your own pace with a gel that is far stronger than anything sold over the counter. Often the only treatment a smile needs, and always the first step when veneers or crowns are coming later.
- Invisalign Clear Aligners — straightening without brackets or wires. Moving crowded or tilted teeth into line first usually means less enamel has to be reduced for veneers afterwards, and sometimes it removes the need for them altogether.
- Dental Implants — a replacement root and crown for a tooth that cannot be saved, so the gap is closed with something that stays in your mouth and is cleaned like a natural tooth.
- Crowns and Tooth-Colored Fillings — the restorative half of the work. A cracked or heavily filled tooth is rebuilt and protected, and the new material is matched to the smile you are ending up with, not the one you started with.
How a Smile Makeover Works
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Consultation
We start with what bothers you, in your words, and with photos and x-rays of where things stand. Bring a picture of a smile you like if you have one — it tells us more about what you are after than any description does.
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Your Plan and Your Quote
You leave with a written plan: which teeth are being treated, in what order, over how many visits, and what each stage costs. Where there is a choice between two approaches, both are on the page with the trade-offs spelled out. Nothing is booked until you have had time to read it.
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A Healthy Foundation First
Decay, gum inflammation and failing old fillings are dealt with before any cosmetic work begins. Veneers bonded to an unhealthy tooth or crowns fitted over inflamed gums fail early, so this stage is not optional — and for many patients it is where a visible part of the improvement already happens.
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Straighten, Then Whiten
If aligners are part of the plan, they run first, because moving a tooth into the right position reduces how much of it has to be shaped later. Whitening follows, since porcelain and composite do not change color once they are made — the final shade has to be decided on teeth that are already as light as they are going to be.
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The Cosmetic Work
Veneers, crowns, bonding and implant restorations go in last, matched to the shade and shape you signed off on. Where the case calls for it you wear temporaries first, so you can live with the new shape for a week or two and tell us what to adjust before the final work is made.
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Keeping It
You leave with a retainer if you have had aligners, a night guard if you grind, and top-up whitening gel for your trays. After that it is the ordinary routine — two cleanings and two exams a year, which is what keeps the work looking new for as long as it can.
Is a Smile Makeover Right for You?
Cosmetic dentistry is elective — nobody needs it the way they need a filling. It is worth doing when the way your teeth look is changing how you behave, and that is a judgment only you can make.
It is usually a good fit if:
- You cover your mouth when you laugh, or smile with your lips closed in photographs
- Whitening alone has stopped making a difference
- Several teeth need restoring anyway, and you would rather they matched
- You have an event ahead and enough time to do the work properly
- Your gums and remaining teeth are healthy, or can be made healthy first
It is worth waiting if you are mid-treatment for gum disease, if you grind heavily and have not yet been fitted for a guard, or if you are pregnant — elective work is normally postponed until after the birth. We will tell you if this is not the right moment; a makeover placed on an unstable foundation is money spent twice.
Why Choose McQuary Dental for Cosmetic Work
- Cosmetic Work Is a Focus Here, Not a Sideline — Dr. Rilie Gonzales especially enjoys restorative and esthetic dentistry, and Dr. David W. Gemmell has placed more than 10,000 implants, so veneer and implant cases are handled in-house by dentists who do them regularly.
- Conservative by Default — if whitening and a little bonding will get you most of the way there, that is what we will recommend. Enamel does not grow back, and we do not remove more of it than the result requires.
- You See the Plan Before You Commit — the sequence, the number of visits and the cost of each stage are written down and given to you. There is no pressure to decide in the chair.
- Locally Owned — the practice answers to its patients rather than to a corporate schedule, which is why a makeover appointment is as long as the work actually takes.
- A Way to Make It Affordable — we file your insurance for the restorative parts of a plan, and our in-house membership plan takes 20% off procedures completed at our practice for patients without coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions Cosmetic Makeovers in Tallahassee, FL
There is no single price, because no two plans contain the same work. Whitening with custom trays is the least expensive option on this page by some distance; a case of several veneers or an implant with a crown is at the other end of the range.
What we can promise is that you will see the number before you commit to anything. Your consultation ends with a written quote broken down stage by stage, so you can do all of it, some of it, or none of it — and spread it across visits if that suits you better.
Purely cosmetic treatment — whitening, veneers placed on sound teeth — is not usually covered by dental insurance. Restorative work inside the same plan often is: a crown on a cracked tooth, a filling replacing decay, sometimes part of an implant.
We are in-network with most PPO providers and we file your claims for you, so whatever your policy does cover, you get the benefit of it. For the rest, our membership plan takes 20% off procedures completed here.
It depends on what the plan contains. Whitening is a couple of weeks at home. Veneers or crowns are typically two to three visits across a few weeks, once any preparatory work is done.
Aligners and implants are the long poles: clear aligner treatment runs for months rather than weeks, and an implant needs time to fuse with the bone before its crown goes on. If you have a date in mind — a wedding, a reunion — tell us at the consultation and we will work backwards from it and say honestly whether it is achievable.
They look fake when they are all the same flat white, all the same length, and too big for the face they are in. None of that is inherent to the material — it is a choice someone made.
Natural teeth vary in translucency from edge to gum and are not identical to one another, and good porcelain work copies that. We choose the shade and shape with you in daylight, against your skin and your lips, and where the case allows it you wear temporaries in that shape first. If they read as too much, that is the moment to change them.
Yes, and it is the one piece of sequencing we will not bend on. Porcelain and composite hold the color they are made in — whitening gel does nothing to them. If you whiten afterwards, your natural teeth lighten and the new work stays where it was, and the mismatch is obvious.
So whitening comes first, we let the shade settle, and only then is the final color chosen. It is also why we keep your trays: topping up at home is what keeps the two matching for years.
No. Apart from the health work that has to come first, most plans can be split across months or years. Plenty of patients start with whitening and the two teeth that bother them most, then come back for the rest later.
The plan is written so that each stage stands on its own and none of them wastes what came before. What we will not do is place cosmetic work over untreated decay or active gum disease to get a faster result.
Porcelain veneers and crowns commonly last well over a decade, and implants can last a lifetime, but every one of those numbers assumes the gums around them stay healthy and the bite is not being hammered every night by grinding.
That is why a night guard is part of so many plans and why the maintenance visits matter more after cosmetic work than before it. Bonding and composite are the shorter-lived option — a few years, and they stain more readily — which is the trade-off for their lower cost and for keeping more of your own tooth.