This is hardly a beauty dare.
I’ve wanted a gold tooth for quite some time. I looked at this more as a beauty opportunity. I’m the opportunistic jerk that pitched the “dare” aspect so that I could expense a gold tooth.
Thaaat’s me!
I find them very romantic. They’re a super-ancient traditional way of showing wealth through accessorizing, like wearing jewelry.
I don’t really wear jewelry. I’m the idiot/genius who knows she's not responsible enough to spend a ton of money on it. I’ve tried a ring or two or three; the most I could deal with on a daily basis was three. I did studs in my ears, but I’m pretty sure they made me an insomniac, so those had to go. I had a really pretty, simple silver necklace, but it kept breaking from getting trapped in my hair that I never comb. I did purchase a cute little moonstone cuff recently, but it’s hard to remember to wear it.
One of my professors in my first semester in college was a Romani immigrant teaching a course on gypsies. I was like, “Oh sweet, I’ll take this gypsy class!” thinking I’d see a bunch of cool clothes and learn about magic and stuff. No. Diaspora.
It was really an enlightening class, and made me super intrigued to learn more about my professor, since he himself was a “gypsy” and by nature not open to “outsiders” like myself. (He said this.) I mean, come on dude. You’re, like, playing the ultimate older mysterious professor card and I feel like maybe you’re really wise and should be my mentor. We can hang after class, get a coffee, talk about life and stuff and when you were my age? I’ll be the Skywalker to your Yoda.
Really, Romani history is depressing as hell, while the culture is truly very beautiful and interesting to learn about. Also, “gypsy” can be a racial slur depending on who you’re talking to. Somebody should tell the dude on the UT staff that named that course Gypsy 101.
Anyway, prof had a gold tooth. And he NEVER smiled, which added to the intrigue. (I’ve never wanted to make somebody laugh as hard in my life while at the same time being totally terrified to say anything around him.) But when he did smile--it was a curled-upper-lip evil snarl reserved for when he made a student look like a jackass--you saw the glint of a shiny gold tooth.
It contrasted so cleanly with the rest of his appearance. He was a well-tailored kind of guy, could color coordinate, had a pretty decent-sized wardrobe, shoes always looked nice, annoyingly organized, always put the caps back on his pens.
The other time I’ve been struck by gold teeth (and maybe it was because they reminded me of my professor’s) was as I was dismembering a very expensive Helmut Newton book to make what ended up being some very expensive wallpaper for my Eastside Commons apartment. (It was $11 at Half Price. ALWAYS Google this type of stuff before making an arts-and-crafts day out of it.)
I can’t find it now, and even if I could, we probably couldn’t afford to buy the photo to show you here, but it was basically some hot, sculptural model with shiny gold teeth. I loved how unpretty it made her. To me, gold teeth seem like more of a masculine thing.
I’ve seen more and more dude friends accessorizing with gold teeth and face tats, like maybe I only hang out with pirates?
Flash forward (or rewind to?) almost a year ago when I decided that I would never work anywhere where I couldn’t be a total weirdo. That’s about the same time I really starting turning my wheels over this whole gold tooth business.
I wanted to quietly get one while in Austin, instead of debuting it on a HUGE NEW BEAUTY SITE, but my only monetarily viable option was to order one online, in which case I would get no instant gratification. Plus, who the hell orders dental work online?
I went to my new friend, Uri, instead! He owns one of those mail-order gold teeth websites, E Gold USA! He’s a proud Russian man and is also very secretive and mysterious. They don’t even normally let clients come in to get their caps made, but made the exception because of Jane Pratt. (Big fan of JANE magazine!)
I dragged one of our two cool interns, Daisy, along to film the process, and, surprise--Daisy got a gold tooth, too! Has any other intern ever been able to say that they got a gold tooth at work?
Uri can do ANYTHING: full grills, diamonds, rubies, cutouts, sparkly curved elongated fang caps. I didn’t go with one of those despite his suggestion. (He also makes jewelry and watches. Naturally.)
Here’s Uri in action:
I was super pleased with how it came out. It’s so shiny--mirrored, in fact. It’s not super-noticeable and in-your-face (‘cause it’s in my face), so it’s fun to see people’s reactions when they realize that you have a gold tooth. Either they really like it or don’t really care or they get freaked out.
It’s especially nice because dweeby dudes tend to steer clear of chicks with gold teeth. Bro-repellent!
The only people vehemently against it were my mom, obviously, and the two Europeans I interacted with while wearing it. Tili and Iranzu, a Greek rock superstar, and a hot Spanish tour manager babe, thought it was cool at first, and then they got really emotional after I took it out and urged me never to wear it again. It was definitely a She’s All That moment if the glasses were replaced with a gold tooth and if the removal of glasses actually had anything to do with suddenly becoming attractive. Also, I think they just wanted it for themselves.
It’s weird how much I’ve been wanting a piece of face jewelry. If it wasn’t the tooth, it was going to be a ring in my eyebrow. It feels more natural to me than wearing a huge sparkly statement ring or a designer bracelet with such marketing that every girl around knows that it’s Cartier or David Yurman or whatever. I still wanna treat myself to some jewels! Just not like that.
A downside is that I can’t eat in it, BUT (and this is totally unsubstantiated) I’m pretty sure that having the huge chunk of metal in my mouth masks the taste of cheap whiskey shots. So, it kind of saves me money in that way?
Another downside is that I tend to lose it. Like that time I had to dig through Corynne’s trash and saw it glinting amongst a pile of tahini garbage rice. I’m going to Etsy a little locket necklace to keep it in.
I’m curious if anybody reading this has a gold tooth. Are any of you are considering ordering one? Go ahead and tell me that I look like a dick in the comments.