![]() This can include diamonds, sapphires, rubies, crystals, gold butterflies, or even model Adwoa Aboah’s Chanel logo design. In fact, you attach jewelry to the tooth’s surface. “Tooth piercing” is a bit of a misnomer, since you don’t actually drill holes into your teeth, as the name suggests. ![]() Ian West - PA Images/PA Images/Getty Images For the practical side of things related to tooth jewelry, we’re here to demystify what tooth piercings are, how long they last, and whether they pose any health risks, as explained by a dentist. There’s no denying that many people right now are frantically figuring out ways to bejewel their teeth, even including using DIY at-home kits. It's the nonconformity thing that I love about it overall, and I think that's what attracted me to it.” It's just kind of expanding the scope of non-traditional fashion, right? And allowing people to demand self-expression in spaces where maybe you're more so supposed to be conforming. “I think everyone can wear a grill or a cap or tooth gems,” she says. “Sorry but this whole ‘tooth gems’ trend is literally just white people stealing yet another thing from Black culture that they continue to discriminate against when it’s on Black people,” wrote one Twitter user on the trend.Īs far as Al-baari sees it, the anti-authoritarian nature of the style trend is what makes it cool, with tooth gems definitely being the more accessible version of tooth jewelry. Celebrities such as Hailey Bieber and Kourtney Kardashian get called trendy for wearing them, while tooth jewelry has long been and may still be stigmatized when worn by Black and Latinx people. With the beauty and style industry’s track record of cultural appropriation, it’s important to recognize the roots of tooth jewelry. And, hey, if you find someone outside of your community who's doing it, I think there's more than enough business to go around.” “As long as you're supporting people within your community, I think that's awesome. “I love seeing so many new sorts of jewelry designers, especially women Black women more specifically, that are coming into this practice, because it is very much a part of our culture, as far as who wears it,” Al-baari tells NYLON. She thinks that while educating people on the cultural context of tooth jewelry is worthwhile, so too is keeping in mind who is profiting off of it now. ![]() As gold teeth continued to rise into the spotlight after Nelly’s “Grillz” music video (which featured over 70 close-up grill shots), so too did other forms of tooth jewelry.Ĭontemporary Detroit-based grills artist Ruqayyah Alzona Al-baari learned the art in South Florida, where she found tooth jewelry a mainstream stay in predominantly Black communities prior to the trends of the moment. Modern grills can be traced back to West Indian immigrants and Black New Yorkers in the ‘70s and ’80s, with Eddie Plein credited as the inventor of the gold removable fronts. Tooth jewelry also holds cultural significance in Black style history, especially grills and caps - which have also become more popular in the past year, due in part to a new crop of grills artists including Helen Harris aka Helen with the Gold Teeth and Dolly Cohen. Similar jewelry has long been part of Latinx culture, dating back to the earliest documented examples in the Mayan Empire (they did, in fact, drill into teeth and fill the holes with precious stones). While tooth jewelry was a major part of late ‘90s and ‘00s style and is having a resurgence thanks to TikTok, tooth gems are not a recently invented trend by any means. In fact, the #toothgem hashtag has amassed over 163 million views on the app, and recent research from PolicyBee analyzing nostalgic beauty trends found tooth gems to be a frontrunner in Y2K comebacks. ![]() From grills and full-tooth gem covers to small, single-tooth charms, tooth embellishments are just one of many 2000s-era trends that are making a comeback right now. Scrolling down the TikTok For You Page over the past year, you’ve likely seen that tooth piercings (also called tooth gems) and tooth jewelry, in general, are having a major surge in popularity.
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