- Hello, my beautiful doves? My name is Mina, and today we're gonna
be talking about teeth. (teeth clicking) (audience laughing) Specifically teeth as a fashion statement. Tiffanyferg did a really good video on classism in the dental industry, and I highly recommend watching that, but since I watched it
a couple months ago, I've been inspired to do
an in-depth exploration into the aesthetic history of teeth. From white teeth to tooth gems, which have been super popular again in the last couple of years
with the Y2K comeback. So to cover the global
history of dental care, we'll just be really fast. And I don't have time for that
nor do I have the expertise to really talk about that. So we're just gonna be sticking with the US and England today. Without further ado, let's get into it. ♪ My shiny teeth and me ♪ - Our first topic of
the day is clean teeth. When did it become so popular
to have a pearly white smile? According to "The Clean
Body" by Peter Ward, the universal idea of clean white teeth didn't really take hold
until the late 19th century. This is because for a very long time, healthy teeth was very
difficult to achieve. Sugar was the main culprit. I'm sure a lot of you history enthusiasts have heard of Queen Elizabeth
I's notoriously bad teeth caused by her sugar addiction. In 1597, the French
ambassador wrote of her, "Her teeth are very yellow and unequal. Many of them are missing so that one cannot understand her easily when she speaks quickly." A year later, a different visitor thought her teeth were black. - Ew! - Prior to the introduction of sugar, dental decay was actually a
function of age, not diet. And considering how primitive medical treatment was in history, I think a lot of us tend
to think that our ancestors suffer from these horrible,
horrible, painful illnesses. But according to James Walvin,
prior to the 17th century, people didn't actually suffer
from as much dental pain as we would think they would, mostly because they
didn't eat or drink sugar. In the 17th century, sugar
was also a luxurious item. So it was mainly the
monarchy and the Royal courts that suffered from tooth loss. - It's what she deserves. - Louis XVI lost all his
teeth by the age of 40, despite having a pretty decent
medical staff at the time. Pretty decent, as in at
least he had a medical staff because he was the king, but these doctors couldn't identify sugar as the culprit for all of
his bad teeth problems. So unfortunately, no more teeth for Louis, but at least he didn't get beheaded. He dodged that bullet or
that guillotine, I guess. Sorry, I had to readjust
because the sun is chasing me. Anyway, the reason that
sugar became a commodity available to everyone, is
unfortunately because of slavery. Sugar that was once
cultivated in small holdings by European laborers,
were now being cultivated on large sugar plantations
in the Caribbean. This increase in sugar led to a widespread bad teeth epidemic, or I guess pandemic, but I'm trying not to use that word because it is triggering. Adults in the later 18th
and early 19th centuries had twice as many cavities in their molars as did those in the 17th. While adults from the
mid 19th century onward had three times as many. Other than sugar, scurvy, which affected a lot
of American colonizers led to tooth loss as well. And the popular fashion trend from the 15th to the 18th centuries, was also to wear this white makeup that was usually made
of either tin, bismuth, lead or mercury. The chronic application of products that contained heavy
metals, especially mercury, would lead to death, but also tooth loss, bad breath and swollen gums. From what I've read, it
seems like some doctors kind of caught on that mercury
was poisonous to the body. The doctor Antoine le
Camus even wrote in 1754 that the mercury in
Rouge would cause people to lose their teeth, acquire bad breath or to have abundant discharges of saliva. But still others were clearly
proponents of mercury, because mercury was also
used as a syphilis treatment all the way up to the 20th century. So if you had tooth loss, it
also signified to the public that you are probably engaging in some immoral behavior
because people assumed you had syphilis, which was an STI. By the 19th century,
finally, personal hygiene was taking hold in the
public consciousness, especially among the rising bourgeoisie who sought to distinguish themselves from the dirty, poor people. I highly recommend
reading "The Clean Body" for anyone interested in the subject, because there's a lot to it. But one of the major catalysts
for the societal cleanliness was the cholera outbreak in the 1830s. Physicians of the time
thought cholera was caused by a filthy environment. So that led to an impulse
to cleanse the community. Another catalyst was that
in the late 18th century, military doctors were trying to figure out what the link was between
unsanitary conditions and disease to preserve the health of their soldiers. At the beginning of the 19th century, self help guides prioritized oral care as a necessary part of beauty care. Appearances mattered a lot
because Victorians believed that your physical appearance
was a manifestation of your moral qualities. Or I guess immoral
qualities, if you were ugly. And throughout the century, pharmacists created a
ton of cleaning products, including dental paste and powders, but only the well-off could afford these. In 1877, soap maker, Colgate, introduced its first toothpaste, which was initially sold in
jars, which was very expensive. But in 1896, they started
to produce the toothpaste in collapsible tin tubes, which was inexpensive to produce. Because the packaging was less costly, prices were lowered and
therefore more and more people could afford to buy toothpaste. Despite all the new developments in the health benefits of
toothpaste over the years, for example, in 1914,
fluoride was introduced. But despite all that, I would still argue that clean teeth was an aesthetic choice, just as much as it was a
health conscious choice. And during the 1920s and '30s, advertisers started to re-emphasize this beauty appeal of toothpaste. As business historian,
Peter Miskell puts it, consumers were urged to buy brands like Listerine and Pepsodent, not to protect their teeth
and gums against decay, but to avoid social exclusion
or romantic rejection caused by halitosis. British advertiser, Charles
Higham, wrote in the 1920s, "What is now common hygienic knowledge, particularly the hygienic
care of the teeth is despite all their efforts, in no way traceable to
the warnings of dentists or even to the magnificent
work of the doctors in school clinics, but
is almost entirely due to the advertisements of manufacturers who sell dental goods." With that said, it makes total sense that in our society, white teeth is not just
a marker of good health, because honestly, if
you talk to any dentist, they'll tell you that some teeth are just gonna be genetically
more yellowy than others, and it's not like a health problem. And it's actually worse for you to use those teeth whitening strips because they strip down your enamel. So in the end, it actually is healthier to have some yellowy teeth, if that's just what you're
naturally prone to have. So anyways, white teeth is not really a marker of good health as
it is a marker of beauty, and something that we aspire to have because we believe it's more attractive and it will lead people
to treat us better. On the flip side, having bad teeth, particularly in the US,
leads people to think that you don't take care of yourself, that you are unqualified for a job, or it leads to any kind of
personal discrimination, Philip Alston, United
Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights said, "If you have lousy teeth,
you can't get a job." He said in a statement, "The shortage of oral health
services combined with the pain and stigmatization of oral disease fundamentally affect the human dignity, and ultimately the civil rights
of the persons concerned." So having bad teeth can also affect a person's level of self-confidence, which ends up having ramifications towards that person's mental
health and quality of life. According to a poll conducted in 2015 for the American Dental Association, more than one of three
low-income Americans don't wanna smile because
of bad oral health. The US is also notorious
for having a terrible, terrible healthcare system. Like on average, it costs about $10,000 to give birth in this country, and it also costs money to die. Thank you, America, land of the free. We don't have universal health care, so obviously no universal dental coverage, but even Medicare doesn't
include routine dental benefits and Medicaid has adult dental
benefits listed as optional. And fewer than half of
the nation's dentists participate in the program anyway, because of low reimbursement. According to Mary Otto, "Dentists
are healthcare providers yet are also small business people. They thus tend to set up private practices in affluent metropolitan areas that they hope will offer a
good return on their investments in education, equipment and staffing. As a result, they are in short supply in many poor minority
and rural communities, as are dental benefits and
money to pay for care." Even when low income families
have dental benefits, that doesn't mean there are
no barriers to get those. For example, they could
get no time off work to make their appointments. They could have no
reliable transportation. And there are also things
like provider shortages. And even for middle income families, I would argue that minimal benefits and high out of pocket costs also act as barriers to good dental care. (upbeat music) The next dental trend I wanna
talk about are false teeth, also known as dentures, but
also I would include veneers into this category as well. So back then, dentures
or false teeth sucked. The technology was just not there. They were traditionally
made of hippopotamus ivory, but these dentures were
very uncomfortable. Ivory also deteriorated in the mouth, so they would cause really bad breath unless you were very
meticulous about cleaning them. Early dentures were also
held in place by springs. So if you even try talking, there was a chance that your dentures would fly out of your mouth. In 1791, the French dentist,
Nicholas Dubois de Chemant, got the patent for porcelain dentures, which came in various sizes and also had gums that were tinted pink. Both ivory and porcelain dentures were very expensive though. George Washington paid $60 for
a pair of dentures in 1795. And no, his dentures
were not made of wood. I don't really know why
that lie came about, but it doesn't make any sense
and it's not true at all. To put it in perspective,
the following year, he paid $25 for a pair of real silver-plated candlesticks. But unlike other luxurious items, you were not supposed to
flaunt that you had dentures. Actually, no one was supposed
to know that you had them. Washington was so about this charade that he would even wear his dentures during meals and toasts, even though you couldn't
really chew wearing them. His dentist John Greenwood
was adamantly opposed to this behavior. - [Woman] (indistinct) behavior. - Because he warned that port wine would lead to discoloration, which would eventually corrode the surfaces of the false teeth. But Washington had an image to upkeep. And there were certain things
that presidents had to do, like entertain certain guests
at dinner time and speak, which is something that his dentures did actually help him do. The surgeon, John Hunter, once warned, "People who have lost all their teeth lose in great measure their voice." But even so, we're in the 18th
century, we have to remember. So his ability to speak was still limited. After his second inaugural address, Senator William Maclay
said Washington's voice was hollow and indistinct,
owing, as I believe to artificial teeth. Hot on his trail. Perhaps even more significant
than his ability to speak and to entertain dinner guests
was a question of character. Dentist advertisements
labeled blackened teeth that had to be pulled
mortifying and disagreeable, deviating as they did from the standard of a white, even and
above all a complete set. And the ladies toilette wrote, "The mere sight of the teeth is capable of giving us a perfect insight into the character of a person. And foul teeth announce
vulgar sentiments." Like I said earlier, tooth decay was often
associated with syphilis, but it was also associated with gluttony, having too much sugar in your
diet, bad cleansing habits. Like if you didn't brush well enough and food was just getting
stuck in your teeth, or excessive smoking or using
too much chewing tobacco. All of these were categorized
under the big umbrella of lack of personal discipline. As the dentist, Thomas
Berdmore reminded readers in his "Treatise on the
Disorders and Deformities of the Teeth and Gums," the art of pleasing in
conversation and social life are matters of the highest
concern to individuals. But in these, no one can excel who has suffered loss of teeth. He criticized that the
smell of rotting teeth was so offensive to others that anyone who had
suffered from tooth loss could not even think of
engaging in polite society. - Hi, I am very ugly, but you
should enjoy the movie anyway. - So with all that said,
Washington's false teeth reassured people that
he was a strong leader, that he would not fall prey
to vices and debauchery that could compromise the new republic. Okay. So I had to move again
because the sun is chasing me. It's giving amateur hour, I'm sorry, but at least you got the
lovely plant back in view. Hi, buddy. Oh, and I totally forgot one thing while I was reshuffling around. But if you had a lot of dough, then you'd get a set of
dentures made of Waterloo teeth, which were teeth taken from corpses. And they wonder why
people got sick back then. Waterloo teeth were named after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Because after that battle, there were about 50,000 dead soldiers who offered a ton of teeth. But there's actually
evidence that dentists were putting human teeth in dentures before the battle of Waterloo. For example, this advertisement
from 1792 calls for teeth. By the way, I don't
know if I made it clear, Waterloo teeth didn't actually mean you had to have teeth taken
from a soldier's corpse. Like they were just named that, but it could be any human's teeth. John Hunter also experimented
with taking teeth from living donors and transplanting it into the mouths of his rich clientele, and this was moderately successful, but modern examiners
believe that he just did a really good job shoving the tooth in. That was the science. To get teeth from a living donor, one would also have to extract it using this terrifying
device called a tooth key. This cartoon from 1787
by Thomas Rowlandson depicts a dentist yanking
teeth out of a poor person for the benefit of his wealthy patrons, notably without anesthetic. Washington also had Waterloo false teeth that were made from the teeth
of his enslaved workers. We know this because we have access to his accounting records, and in 1784, Washington offered to pay a
number of people for nine teeth. And this was unfortunately
not an unheard of practice. What probably was more unheard of is him offering to pay them. Art historian, Jennifer Van
Horn, put it succinctly. "The general would certainly
not have been alone as a white southerner with
African-Americans' teeth in his mouth." So moving on to the present day. We still have dentures,
but we also have veneers, which have taken Hollywood and
influencer culture by storm. But the Hollywood fake teeth industry actually started way earlier in the 1930s. After the stock market crash
in 1929, Charles Pincus, a young dentist opened his office on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. After scrutinizing a
number of actors' mouths at the movies, he came to realize that his services could be beneficial to the entertainment industry. He wrote, "The camera's cruel
in its relentless exposure of the smallest flaw in the mouth. A tooth turned even slightly out of line casts a shadow before it." So Pincus invented a mixture of powdered plastic and porcelain that he then shaped onto snap-on caps. These caps would stay on for a
few hours or up to a few days before they needed to be replaced again, and were known as Hollywood veneers. Among his clientele were Montgomery Clift, Fannie Brice, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Walt Disney, Judy Garland and Bob Hope. LA dentist, Timothy Gogan, who was a longtime student
of Pincus recalled, "Joan Crawford's new teeth
made her lips look fuller, her teeth longer and whiter, and helped give her a femme fatale smile." And on the young starlet Shirley Temple, he said, "You never saw
Shirley Temple without hers." Yes, Shirley Temple also had some veneers. In Pincus' words, Shirley
Temple was quite a problem as a moppet star. Losing her deciduous teeth, baby teeth for us non-dentists, during the production entailed many different types of restorations, which had to be constantly changed. All this had to be planned
so as not to hold up the shooting schedule as one day's loss meant approximately 15 to
$20,000 cost to the studio. And these perfect teeth
did not go unrewarded and made a big impression on its audience. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt said while in office, "It is a splendid thing
that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles." Since Pincus, dentists have developed all kinds of new technology, including veneers that last
longer than a film shooting day. Modern veneers are also irreversible. The teeth are shaved down
only about 0.3 to 0.5 tenths of a millimeter, which isn't a lot, but it is a permanent shave. Despite this, veneers
are still not permanent and you will have to get them replaced after about 15 to 20 years
if you take care of them. Aesthetic dentist, Sivan
Finkel told Refinery29, "Everyone in Hollywood has veneers. The first thing that happens when someone starts their
career and moves out to LA, is their agent tells them,
'You've gotta get veneers now.' I do a lot of work on up and coming people or people who think
they're up and coming..." Yikes. "Because they're competing with everyone who has quote unquote perfect teeth." But even for people who aren't dreaming of becoming the next silver screen star are still being pressured into getting this Hollywood treatment. Cosmetic dentist, Michael Apa said, "What's happening now
in the dental industry is that every dentist is catching on that the best way to market
people is to do an influencer. So now these influencers are getting a thousand requests from dentists saying, 'Let me fix your teeth.' And the influencers are
going in and thinking, 'Oh, free veneers.' And unfortunately, a lot
of that work is horrible." The reason why there are
a lot of questionable veneer sets out there, is because in the words of Dr. Apa, cosmetic dentistry is not
a recognized specialty by the American Dental Association. So basically anyone
can open their practice and do this type of dentistry. It's the most lucrative form of dentistry and the most rewarding, so
everyone wants to do it. But going to a general dentist for veneers is like going to your general
physician for a facelift, because he took a weekend
course and offers them now. That's fricking scary. But people love veneers. Because unlike braces and
teeth whitening strips, they're an instant fix. Nowadays, people don't wanna wait around for several months to
get the perfect smile, but the pressure to get veneers can lead people to permanently
disfigure their teeth, especially if the dentist
doesn't know what they're doing and shaves down a little too much and you end up looking like Shark Boy. - Wow. That really, really... That is a train wreck. That's an absolute train wreck. It never should have been done. I think she went to
Turkey to get this done. No one in the US would be
able to have their license if they did something like that. That is horrific. Those are not veneers. Those are crown preps, very
aggressive crown preps, that damage healthy tooth structure. You're not supposed to do that
when you get into dentistry. We don't have a license to
damage beautiful virgin teeth. That's what happened here. - And then influencers will promote these unqualified dentists because they're getting
these veneers for free, and then their followers
will follow in line getting these questionable veneers, but paying the cost for them. The literal cost, not just
the cost of looking bad. (guys screaming) Dr. Finkel says the price
of an average single veneer in New York city is $2,000. Dr. Apa charges roughly
a 3,500 to $4,000 each, putting a full set at around $80,000. Even if you choose to only get
a single veneer or something, you're still going to probably have to spend money regularly
bleaching your teeth so that they all have this uniform look. At these costs, it's virtually impossible for anyone lower income
to get a set of veneers, which leads to a bigger dental disparity. But now the bar is set so
high that the Hollywood smile is just not naturally attainable, no matter how many
routine dental cleanings you have access to. Unless you get adopted by
Angelina Jolie or something, there's just no hope. ♪ Rob the jewelry store and
tell 'em make me a grill ♪ - Okay, the last one I wanna
talk about are tooth ornaments or tooth gems or grills or
whatever you wanna call them. But tooth ornaments just seems like the best broad term for it. Teeth ornaments actually have
a pretty ancient history, starting with Etruscans
in modern day Italy, specifically Etruscan woman. In his 1999 study, Marshall
Joseph Becker noted that archeologists found documentation of around 20 sets of teeth woven with a delicate golden wire, that was about the size
of a thick rubber band. The earliest of these artifacts date back to the seventh century BCE. Becker writes, "Certain
high status Etruscan woman deliberately had their front teeth removed in order to be fitted
with a gold band appliance holding a replacement or reused tooth." But when the Romans took over Italy, the practice and virtually all Etruscan cultural traditions died out. During the Classical period, Maya kings and queens also would wear what we now call tooth gems, though I feel like using
that contemporary term to describe this very ancient practice feels a little inappropriate. But anyways, they drilled holes about three millimeters in
diameter into their upper teeth and filled them with brown pieces of jade. There's also a ton more
teeth modification practices around the world, but these are just two of the older ones that I wanted to talk about. To put into perspective
that teeth ornamentation is just a very human thing. People just wanna modify
their bodies to be beautiful, and teeth are included. But let's go forward
to contemporary history and talk about grills. Grills, also known as fronts, are decorative teeth covers
made of gold, silver, or jewel encrusted precious
metals that snap over the teeth. They are removable,
but people can also get their teeth altered with gold crowns to create this like permanent grill look. In the late 1970s, grills were popular among Caribbean immigrants
in Brooklyn, New York. Akintola Hanif, EIC of HYCIDE said, "I was a kid growing
up between Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant,
when I first noticed grills on some of the west
Indian people in Bed-Stuy. They would have one or two gold teeth." According to this VICE article, these gold teeth were not stylized and were a reflection of
the slow economic period in the Caribbean, especially in Jamaica. There wasn't much money for dental care, so people resorted to gold teeth. And then in the late '70s and '80s, people immigrated from the
Caribbean to New York city, and because their gold teeth looked cool, it became a fashion statement among the Black community here. By the mid '80s, Slick
Rick was wearing grills, and Big Daddy Kane and Kool
G Rap followed soon after. Then in 2005, Nelly's music
video for the song "Grillz," which featured more than 70
close-up shots of gold teeth, introduced grills to
the American mainstream, and became a very lucrative business as popularity for the ornamentation grew. Johnny Dang, a Vietnamese jeweler, whose grills were featured
in the music video was selling more than a 400
decorative tooth coverings a day for at least $500 each. - What do they say? When you go into the dentist,
you've got diamonds as teeth. - I mean, it's just certain stuff that rock stars are supposed to do. - Since hip hop and pop have
merged more closely together in the last decade, now pop
artists are wearing grills. Miley Cyrus has worn them,
Katy Perry has worn them, Madonna has worn them. And this is a problem
because a lot of Black people still get discriminated against for wearing them in white society. Meanwhile, when white artists wear them, they're praised as being
experimental and trendy and fashionable and
bringing something back. Similar to how people viewed
gold-plated necklaces, which also has origins
in the hip hop culture, but then became very mainstream when Carrie Bradshaw wore
them in "Sex and the City." - You wear gold jewelry? - Yeah, like ghetto gold for fun, but this is my engagement ring. - Tooth gems were another
type of teeth ornamentation that grew in popularity in
the '90s and early 2000s. But interestingly, I did
come across an article that mentioned tooth gems in the Washington Post written in 1897. The journalist wrote,
"Wearing diamonds in the teeth is an expensive fad that has
attained great proportions in Washington that most people believe." The tooth gems mentioned in
the article were diamonds, not rhinestones or crystals. And it was allegedly a
way for wealthy women to store their gems in a place
where they could be seen, but not touched. Honestly, it's giving Lil Uzi
with the forehead diamond. The dentist interviewed
in the article said he usually injects the diamond wherever there is a natural cavity. So while removing the cavity, he just puts the diamond there
and then fills the backing with gold or cement, and there you go. You got a diamond in your tooth. But in some cases, women did
not have natural cavities and they still wanted the diamond. So only quote at the urgent
request of the patient, aka, the patient offered
me a ton of money, did he drill a new hole in the tooth. But he also mentions that this
is always a bad thing to do. In the '90s, tooth gems could be diamonds, crystals, or rhinestones. They could be made in a range of colors, and were usually bonded to the tooth using a type of dental adhesive. You didn't need a cavity
anymore to bling out your teeth. I also ran into a BBC article from 2003, about a 12-year-old
girl named Rebecca Reed, who was sent home from school
for having a tooth gem. It was a Christmas present from her mom, but because the school had an
anti body modification rule, they sent her home and said, she couldn't go back to
school unless she removed it. The problem is tooth gems
will naturally fall off in six to eight months, but if you have to get
them removed beforehand, then the dentist has to
scrape off the tooth gem, and that can end up
scratching your enamel. The tooth gem resurrection
in today's culture is largely attributed to
the rise in nostalgic trends from the Y2K era. Temporary tattoos, scrunchies, baby tees, juicy couture, and the whale tail trend have all made a similar comeback. Last time I looked, the hashtag tooth gem had 157.1 million views on TikTok, and a good number of them are videos that are like DIY tutorials. The danger though is that while tooth gems are generally pretty harmless, if they're applied incorrectly, that can lead to the
breaking down of enamel or increased risk of decay and infection. Cosmetic dentist, Dr. Hanna Kinsella adds, "Dental jewels can affect your ability to clean teeth properly, meaning that it can be an ideal place for food and bacteria to hide." Especially now that kids
are no longer getting braces and instead getting Invisalign, I feel like some of you don't understand the art of cleaning your teeth when you have a bunch of metal
stuck all over your mouth. There's even videos on TikTok
from professional dentists who post reaction videos
over the unregulated glue used in these DIY kits. (upbeat music) - Dude, Gorilla Glue? Come on. Can I go off for a second? There's no way those gems are coming out without ripping out some enamel too. Let's talk about tooth gems. First of all, these DIY
kits contain materials that we use in dental offices. That blue stuff, it's phosphoric acid. Imagine what it does to your tissue if it sits there too long. This stuff only needs to be
handled by dental professionals. Secondly, tooth gems trap a
ton of bacteria around them. Time you see a lot of
staining and decay like this. - TikToker Kailey Russell, who posted a tooth gem
DIY video said later, "I've learned nail glue is
pretty bad for your teeth. If I ever get another one, I'd go to a professional for sure." Lana Sophia, owner and
founder of Crystal Canine, where she does professional
tooth gem application also said, "We only have one set of teeth and need to look after them. Using things you find in
the messy drawer or shed not only can cause immense
damage to your teeth, but using cheap crystals
that often contain lead can make you really unwell. Anything you put in your
mouth, you'll be ingesting." She also added, "I think the most awful
thing I see repeatedly is crystals placed way too close to the perimeter of the tooth. If it's too close to the
bite, it can cause trauma when you talk and eat, while
being too close or on the gum will force the gums to recede. This sounds obvious when you say it, but it's something I see
over and over again." Okay. That's all I have for today. Thank you so much for
tuning in to this wild ride down aesthetic dentistry, that you may or may not knew you needed. Let me know in the comments what you think about
veneers or tooth gems, or really anything I've
talked about in this video. I know I covered a lot of ground, but I'm interested in hearing
what you all have to say, and yeah, that's all I have. So I hope you have a lovely
rest of your holiday season and I'll see you in the new year. Bye-bye (gentle music)
