Dr. Lily Taheri, DDS, holds a credential that no other dentist in Perth can claim. She is the only practitioner in Western Australia to have earned a Mastership certification in Digital Smile Design — a distinction that places her at the leading edge of cosmetic dentistry not just locally, but nationally. That credential is not a wall decoration. It shapes every consultation she conducts, every treatment plan she builds, and every smile she helps a patient see — often before a single procedure has begun. At The Applecross Dentist, the practice she owns and leads in Perth's southern suburbs, Dr. Taheri has assembled a team of registered dental practitioners around a shared philosophy: that exceptional cosmetic dentistry begins with understanding exactly what a patient wants, and that the technology now exists to show them precisely what they will get before they commit to anything.
The practice operates as a full-service dental clinic — general dentistry, emergency care, sedation options, and a comprehensive cosmetic offering that spans porcelain veneers, composite veneers, Invisalign, dental implants, ZOOM teeth whitening, and gummy smile treatment, among others. It accepts all health funds and holds preferred provider status with HCF, nib, and HBF. Payment plans are available through TLC, Zip Pay, Humm, and Super Care, which allows eligible patients to access treatment through their superannuation. For Applecross residents and those across Perth's southern suburbs who have been searching for a cosmetic dentist they can trust with a result that matters to them, the practice offers something that is harder to find than most people expect: the ability to see the outcome before it happens.
For anyone who has been thinking about cosmetic dental work and trying to understand what separates a practice that delivers transformative results from one that delivers adequate ones, here is how Dr. Taheri thinks about that work — and what it means in practice.
What Cosmetic Dentistry Actually Requires — And Why Seeing the Result First Changes Everything
"Most people come in with a feeling more than a specification," Dr. Taheri explains. "They know they want to feel more confident when they smile. They might have a photo saved on their phone of a smile they admire. But they haven't been able to translate that into a clinical conversation, because nobody has given them the tools to do that." Digital Smile Design, the technology Dr. Taheri has mastered at the highest level available in Australia, is precisely those tools — and what it produces changes the entire nature of the cosmetic dental consultation.
The process begins with a detailed analysis of the patient's facial structure, lip line, gum position, and tooth proportions. From that analysis, the Digital Smile Design system generates an exact mockup of what the patient's smile could look like after treatment — not a rough approximation, but a precise, patient-specific visualisation built to the actual dimensions of their face. "We call it test driving your new smile," Dr. Taheri says. "Before we've touched anything, you can see what you're going to look like. You can react to it, adjust it, ask questions about it. The decision you make is informed in a way that simply wasn't possible before this technology existed."
That visualisation capability is particularly significant in the context of porcelain veneers, one of the most transformative — and most considered — cosmetic procedures the practice offers. Custom-made ceramic shells bonded to the front surface of the teeth, veneers can address discolouration, chips, cracks, and proportion issues in a single treatment. The result, when properly designed and placed, is a smile that looks entirely natural because it has been designed specifically for the person wearing it. For patients who are weighing veneers against composite alternatives or other approaches, the Digital Smile Design mockup gives them a concrete basis for that comparison rather than an abstract one.
Invisalign occupies a different part of the cosmetic conversation — one that Dr. Taheri frames as functional as well as aesthetic. Clear aligner treatment corrects alignment issues that affect not just the appearance of a smile but how the teeth function together: bite mechanics, cleaning effectiveness, and the long-term stability of other cosmetic work. "If we're going to place veneers or do whitening, the alignment of the underlying teeth matters," she explains. "Cosmetic dentistry done in the right sequence, with the full picture in mind, produces results that hold up. That's the difference between a smile that looks great on day one and one that still looks great in ten years."
Teeth whitening through ZOOM — a clinically administered, light-activated system — rounds out the practice's cosmetic offering for patients whose primary concern is colour rather than shape or alignment. Dr. Taheri is direct about where whitening fits in the broader treatment picture: it is an excellent starting point for patients who are otherwise happy with their smile's structure, and it is a finishing step for those who have completed more involved work. What it is not, she notes, is a substitute for treatments that address underlying structural concerns. Knowing the difference is part of what a thorough cosmetic consultation provides.
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What This Means for Patients in Applecross and Perth's Southern Suburbs
Applecross sits within a part of Perth where the demand for high-quality cosmetic dental care has grown considerably, and where the gap between what patients are looking for and what they have historically been able to access locally has been real. Dr. Taheri built her practice with that gap in mind. The clinic's state-of-the-art facility, its investment in Digital Smile Design technology, and its team of four registered dental practitioners — Dr. Fay Asghari, Dr. Andrew Tilt, and Dr. Monica Hernandez alongside Dr. Taheri — reflect a deliberate commitment to bringing a level of cosmetic dental expertise to the southern suburbs that previously required travelling further afield.
For patients who have been putting off cosmetic work because of cost, the practice's payment infrastructure is worth understanding in detail. The availability of Super Care — which allows patients to use their superannuation to fund dental treatment — is not a common offering, and it meaningfully changes the accessibility of procedures that might otherwise sit just beyond reach. Combined with the practice's health fund relationships and its range of payment plan options, it means that the conversation about what a patient wants to achieve does not have to be derailed by the question of what they can afford to do right now.
The practice's emergency and general dentistry capabilities matter here too, in a way that is easy to overlook when the focus is on cosmetic outcomes. Patients who receive cosmetic treatment at The Applecross Dentist are not handed off to a separate provider when a general dental need arises. The same team that designed and placed their veneers can handle a check-up, a filling, a root canal, or a dental emergency on the same day. That continuity — of records, of relationship, of clinical context — is a meaningful part of what it means to have a dental home rather than a cosmetic provider.
Sedation dentistry is available for patients whose anxiety about dental treatment has historically been the barrier between them and the care they want. Dr. Taheri's team approaches this without judgment: dental anxiety is common, it is real, and it is addressable. For patients who have avoided cosmetic consultations because the clinical environment itself feels overwhelming, knowing that sedation options exist changes what is possible.
What to Ask When You Are Evaluating a Cosmetic Dentist
For anyone in Applecross or the surrounding suburbs who is actively looking for a cosmetic dentist and trying to make a well-informed decision, a few questions are worth asking before committing to a consultation — let alone a treatment plan.
Ask specifically about the dentist's cosmetic credentials and training. General dental registration qualifies a practitioner to perform cosmetic procedures, but it does not tell you anything about the depth of their training in smile design, aesthetic proportion, or the specific techniques involved in veneers, implants, or aligner treatment. A Mastership in Digital Smile Design is a meaningful differentiator — it represents a level of specialisation in cosmetic planning and visualisation that goes well beyond standard continuing education.
Ask whether the practice can show you the result before treatment begins. This is not a standard offering across the industry. The ability to generate a precise, patient-specific mockup of the proposed outcome — and to adjust it based on your feedback — is a technology-dependent capability that requires both the right tools and the expertise to use them well. A practice that can show you your new smile before you commit to it is a practice that is confident in what it is proposing.
Ask how the practice approaches the relationship between cosmetic and general dental health. A cosmetic dentist who treats the smile in isolation — without assessing the underlying health of the gums, bone, and bite — is building on an uncertain foundation. The most durable cosmetic results come from practitioners who understand that aesthetics and health are not separate conversations.
Finally, ask about payment options before assuming a treatment is out of reach. The availability of superannuation funding, health fund benefits, and flexible payment plans can change the financial picture significantly — and a practice that makes those options clear upfront is one that wants the conversation to be about what you want to achieve, not what you think you can afford.
A Practice Built Around the Smile You Have Always Wanted
Dr. Lily Taheri did not build The Applecross Dentist to be a general practice that also offers cosmetic treatments. She built it to be a place where cosmetic dentistry is done at the highest level available in Perth — where the technology, the training, and the team are all oriented toward a single outcome: giving patients a smile that reflects who they are and holds up over time.
The practice's reputation in Applecross and across Perth's southern suburbs has grown through the kind of results that patients share with the people around them — friends who notice something has changed, family members who ask what they did differently, colleagues who can't quite place why someone seems more confident than they used to be. That is the measure of cosmetic dentistry done well: not that it is visible, but that it is felt.
For anyone who has been thinking about their smile and wondering whether the right practice exists nearby, the answer in this part of Perth is yes. The first step is a consultation, and it starts with a conversation about what you have always wanted your smile to look like.