I wish my teeth looked like that. Secret reveal: They don’t. I have healthy teeth that are all reasonably even and fairly inoffensive, and I have never had a filling in my life-I have no idea how, as my father has teeth like a camel, but on the plus side, at least they are still his own.
Anyway, Goth teeth. The first time this idea crossed my mind as a blog post, I wrote it off as completely stupid, but it keeps coming back to me, and so I have decided to give it a whirl.
I’m not going to bore the everloving shit out y’all telling you to brush and floss; we’re all grownups after all, but I think as fangs, feature lip colours and other things oral-related are all common parts of Goth life, it was worth discussing a few of them!
50 shades of yellow…
…Would still be a better book than that E.L. James shit.
This will come as a surprise to exactly no one, but Hollywood-white, virtually glow in the dark teeth are not natural. I don’t just mean that celebs go too far, which they undoubtedly do, but that strong, healthy teeth are not actually white naturally full stop-they’re made of the same material as bones, ya moron, and unless something is done to make them brittle or bleached, they are a beigey-yellow shade, which varies from person to person.
Things like red wine, coffee and fags will all serve to discolour and stain your teeth further, obvs, but trying to change the colour of your actual teeth to white by natural means is something that you’re just not going to manage, just like I’ll never wake up to find pink hair growing naturally out of my head.
So, moving onto Goth make up. While it might seem intuitive that wearing a pinky-brown or brown lippy might make your dingy chompers look whiter, the opposite is actually true. If your teeth are beige, lip colours from the same corner of the palate will make them look a whole lot worse and more noticeable. The same goes with pale lippy colours, and to a certain extent, a pale skin tone-which as we all know, is every Goth’s dream, and can easily be achieved with white makeup.
But. Breaking up the colour between your white face and your dingy teeth with a darker, unrelated shade totally works, and will make your teeth look whiter than normal, so all is good. Black cherry, dark red, pure black… All fine. Make sure your lip colour is strong enough to carry it off though, if you’re working an all-white face.
Fangs
Some hardcore committed dudes actually have permanent implants put in where their canines should be, or have specially fitted bridgework and other professional dental work to get realistic-looking permanent fangs.
I am sure that some nutter somewhere has also managed to file their teeth down into spikes to do this too, although that might be more at the asylum end of the spectrum rather than the Anne Rice end.
As anyone who ever thought that dressing up as a vampire for Halloween (or date night) was a good idea will tell you, artificial fangs can be absolutely massive pain in the arse. Also, mouth.
The problems that they can cause are multiple, and for me, involved uncontrollable drooling, lisping, and actually rubbing sore patches on my gums. However, if you really are jonesing for some fangs, there are a few options that are less likely to do your head in, but none of them come cheap.
That being said, if you do just want to work the look for a one-off night out, this YouTube tutorial shows you how to put in temporary fangs, and make them stick for the night.
In order to stand a chance of getting comfortable, well-fitting fangs that will last, yet not damage your teeth or gums and that can be taken in and out, you’re probably going to have to get them custom made.
Obviously the longer and more spiky they are, the weirder they will feel and the more getting used to they will take, but even “subtle” fangs can make a real impact too, even moreso if they look natural (we’re using the word “natural” in a relative sense here, obviously).
There are a surprising number of firms that specialise in offering custom-made fangs, most of which are in America (because obvs), but if you can get moulds done here in the UK, most of them will flog you your new teeth over the internet, with Custom Fangs being the apparent big-hitters in the weird dental work field.
Do you work fangs? Got a dental tip for Goths? Tell me in the comments!
