What cookies are, and our position on them
Small files a website asks your browser to keep. Useful for a few things, abused for many others.
A cookie is a short piece of text stored by your browser and sent back to the site that set it. Some are genuinely necessary — remembering that you dismissed a banner, keeping a form from losing your answers. Most of the rest exist to follow people between websites.
Our position
- No advertising cookies. None, from anyone.
- No cross-site tracking pixels, no advertising network tags, no social media tracking widgets.
- No cookies at all until you answer the banner, apart from the one that records your answer.
- Analytics only with consent, and configured so IP addresses are truncated before storage.
- Refusing everything leaves the site fully functional. Nothing is withheld, and the banner does not reappear on every page to wear you down.
Cookies this site uses
The complete list. If your browser shows a cookie on this domain that is not here, we want to know about it.
Strictly necessary — set without consent
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| vm_consent | Records your answer to the cookie banner, so you are not asked again | 6 months |
| vm_session | Keeps a consultation form from losing your answers if a page reloads. Session only, no identifier shared with anyone | When you close the browser |
Analytics — only after you accept
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Distinguishes one visitor from another so visit counts are not wildly wrong | 13 months |
| _ga_* | Holds the session state for the property | 13 months |
When analytics is enabled we switch on IP truncation, turn off advertising features and signals, and do not link analytics data to anything you send us. We use it to find out which pages people abandon, not who you are.
What we do not set
- Advertising or remarketing cookies of any kind.
- Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn or X conversion pixels.
- Cross-site identity or fingerprinting scripts.
- Session recording or heatmap tools that replay what you did on the page.
- Chat widgets that profile visitors across sites.
Local storage, and the tools on this site
The calculators keep their answers in your browser. That is storage rather than a cookie, and it never reaches us.
The self-assessment tools — the cost estimator, recovery timeline, Norwood scale, BMI and weight-loss projection, implant sizing and smile designer — run entirely in your browser. They may keep your last answers in local storage so a reload does not wipe them. Local storage is not sent with requests the way a cookie is, so these values never reach our servers.
| Key | Holds | Cleared |
|---|---|---|
| vm.tool.* | Your last answers in a calculator, so a reload does not lose them | When you clear site data, or by the tool’s reset button |
| vm.ui.* | Interface preferences, such as which FAQ you had open | When you clear site data |
Changing your mind, and clearing what is stored
Three ways to control this, in increasing order of thoroughness.
On this site
Use the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page. It reopens the banner with your current choice shown, and a change takes effect immediately — withdrawing consent also deletes the analytics cookies rather than merely stopping new ones.
In your browser
- Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies, and Delete browsing data to clear what is already stored.
- Safari: Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data, or Advanced → Block all cookies.
- Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data.
- Edge: Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Manage and delete cookies.
- On iOS and Android the same options sit under the browser app’s own settings rather than the system settings.
Signals we honour
- Global Privacy Control (GPC): if your browser sends it, we treat analytics as refused and do not show you the banner asking again.
- Do Not Track: the same, although the standard is effectively dead and almost nobody honours it any more.
Clearing cookies will also remove the record of your banner choice, so you will be asked once more on your next visit. That is a limitation of the mechanism rather than a tactic.
Third parties and embedded content
Content loaded from somewhere else can set its own cookies. Here is everything on this site that could.
| Service | Where it appears | Cookies |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | Site-wide, only after you accept | Yes — _ga, _ga_* |
| WhatsApp click-to-chat link | Buttons throughout the site | None. It is an ordinary link; nothing loads until you click it |
| Fonts | Site-wide | None. Fonts are served from our own domain, not from Google Fonts |
| Maps | Contact page, only if you choose to load it | Yes, Google’s own — which is why it does not load by itself |
Links to other sites
Where we link to a hospital, an accreditation body or a regulator, that site has its own policies and we have no control over them. A link is not an endorsement of their privacy practices — only of the information at the other end.
If you clicked through from an advertisement
Advertising platforms may add tracking parameters to the URL you arrived on. We do not read them into any profile, we do not store them against your enquiry, and we do not run a conversion pixel that reports back to the platform that you contacted us.
Cookies: frequently asked questions
No. Refuse everything and the site works exactly as it does otherwise — every page, every calculator, every form. Nothing is withheld and the banner will not keep reappearing to wear you down.
One cookie, vm_consent, recording that you refused, so you are not asked again for six months. Plus a session cookie if you start filling in a form, which disappears when you close the browser.
None, from anyone. No Meta pixel, no Google Ads tag, no TikTok or LinkedIn tracking. Pages you read here reveal something about your health, and the simplest way to stop that following you around the web is not to install the tracker.
Use the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page. It reopens the banner with your current choice shown, and withdrawing consent deletes the analytics cookies rather than just stopping new ones.
In your browser’s local storage, so a reload does not wipe them. Local storage is not transmitted with requests the way a cookie is, so your weight, BMI or implant measurements never reach us.
Yes. If your browser sends the GPC signal we treat analytics as refused and do not show you the banner asking again.
No. They are served from our own domain, so no request goes to Google when you open a page and no cookie is set by loading them.
Because Google sets its own cookies when it does. It loads only if you choose to, which seemed better than setting third-party cookies on everyone who wanted to check an address.
The record of your banner choice goes with them, so you will be asked once more on your next visit. That is a limitation of the mechanism rather than a tactic to get a different answer.
No. Nothing replays what you did on a page, and nothing records your mouse movements or scrolling. On a site where people read about their own bodies, that felt like an easy thing to decline.
Not until you click it. It is an ordinary link — nothing from Meta loads on the page, so no cookie is set by its presence.
Open developer tools, look at Application → Cookies for this domain, and compare with the tables above. We would rather you checked than took the page at face value.
