Well, it looks less stupid than a grill.
Posted on 08/20/2006 7:43:35 AM PDT by Huntress
Mouth grills are so last year.
The newest (and some say safer) way to display dental bling: tooth jewelry.
Unlike grills -- mouthpieces that blanket the teeth like gaudily bejeweled braces -- tooth jewelry is a less ostentatious, less expensive and less intrusive way to sparkle when you smile.
Monika Linau, owner of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based DecoDent, sells a range of tooth crystals and jewelry that includes crosses, aliens, Nike-swoosh lookalikes, and gems in heart and star shapes.
The jewels are meant to be attached by dentists with a composite substance.
"It's basically the same process as a colored tooth filling," said Linau, who was a dental hygienist in Germany before settling in Santa Barbara in 1999. "Every dentist can do it within five to 10 minutes."
It isn't a new concept: Ancient Mayans once used more invasive techniques, drilling into teeth to insert gems. More recently, tooth jewels have become popular in Europe, Japan and Brazil, Linau said.
They're just starting to catch on in the United States, Linau said, but tooth jewels still lack the street status of grills, which got their cachet from the rap and hip-hop community, and a hit song that sang their praises.
Many dentists aren't thrilled by grills, and not all of them are ready to bite at tooth jewelry, either.
"I don't think I would get involved in that sort of thing," said Colorado Springs, Colo., dentist Debbie Roubal. "It doesn't sound like the safest thing to do."
Roubal, who hasn't worked with teeth jewelry, said problems can arise with tooth decorations, including enamel wear and fractures.
The American Dental Association doesn't mention tooth jewelry on its Web site, although it warns people who wear grills to practice good oral hygiene, limit wear and brush regularly.
Dr. Matthew Messina, an American Dental Association consumer adviser who has a private practice in Cleveland, said there are worries associated with tooth jewelry -- especially for people who install their own.
Dejon Stewart, a 17-year-old student at Sierra High School in the Colorado Springs area, said he's seen girls at his high school glue what appear to be fake diamonds from nail sets onto their teeth. Messina blanches at the thought.
"There's a difference between (putting) something in your mouth and on your skin," Messina said. "A lot of the adhesives that are used are relatively toxic."
Messina said it's not about the ADA or dentists not liking the style. A badly installed tooth jewel could result in serious problems.
"You're just creating a situation where all kinds of bacteria and plaque will stick to it and irritate the gums around it," he said.
The dentist-installed products may be safer, he said, and Linau insists her products aren't harmful. DecoDent typically sells the jewels directly to dentists through its Web site, decodent.us, and sends an instruction page to them for proper attachment.
A jewel will remain on the tooth from eight months to two years or more, or until the wearer goes back to the dentist to have it removed, Linau said.
"The only downside is that you can't just take off the jewel," she said, because the jewels must also be professionally removed.
She, too, encourages wearers to practice good oral hygiene.
"That's why it's important a dentist does it," she said.
The DecoDent site also sells self-install kits, which Linau calls a "diluted version" of what the dentists install.
Prices range from $25 for a temporary self-install kit to $35 for one dentist-installed jewel to $255 for a set of 14 dentist-installed gems.
Dentists' charges to install the jewels will vary, Linau said.
Even if tooth jewels prove safe, there's no guarantee they'll catch on.
"I've seen some diamonds on teeth," Stewart said recently during a trip to the mall. "It doesn't look right."
Well, it looks less stupid than a grill.
Well, it looks slightly less stupid than a grill.
They'll be sticking them on cats next....
It's all stupid!
Now he just looks like he has a bad tooth.
But then anything is better then that.
In the movie Remo Williams one of the bad guys had a diamond on his tooth.
Remo used the guys face, to etch glass, in order to break the glass of the room they were in.
Seriously, I just do not get the people who do stuff like this...they're right up there with the people who cover their faces in tatoos. There's a guy who comes to my local pub quite often, and he's got his entire head covered with tatoos, piercings everywhere, and he's had his canine teeth filed to points and capped with gold. And my pub is not really the type of place that you would expect this in...usually it's just surly old men.
Why is it always people of a certain, ahem, "racial" persuasion that fall for this garbage? Like I tell my three children, it's not about the fashion but it's about the inventor trying to score big $$ on everyone else's gullibility.
That's why the fashions change so quickly. Tattoos, piercings in bizarre locations, rings for toes, ladies' nail paintings, now teeth jewelry.
Sorry to be so blunt but people who fall for this are blithering idiots.
Doubt very much that the typical grill-adorned street punk has the ADA on their favorite websites tab, or even cares if they brush 3 times a day.
Had a friend once with a gem like that; then I turned eleven and stopped hanging around with circus clowns.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.