Celebrities like Katy Perry, Hailey Baldwin, and Pink are turning to tooth jewelry to make sparkly statements with their smiles.
“Grills can be difficult because you have to take them out and they’re hard to speak and eat with, but what I’m doing now is adhering diamonds to the teeth and they can stay there all the time,” Dr. Anjali Rajpal, who works with all three of the aforementioned stars, recently told Us Weekly.
“I like to make something fun and since there’s no damage to the tooth structure … all I do is polish off the gem and polish back the tooth structure, so they can easily change it up,” Rajpal continued of what she called a “cool new trend.”
But not all dentists agree. Dr. Michael Apa, the cosmetic dentist behind the smiles of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Uma Thurman, recently told Page Six “there are so many” reasons to avoid adding diamonds to your incisors.
“It can chip your teeth and cause calcification (the white deposits usually found on the enamel after taking off braces),” he told us via email. “Tooth jewelry can also trap bacteria and food particles below it and underneath your teeth, which can cause bad breath. It’s also extremely terrible for the gums, as it can cause inflammation that can lead to a bevy of additional dental issues.”
And for those who still opt for tooth jewelry despite the threat of stinky breath, Apa added, “veneers are off the table” — meaning that celebrities, many of whom perfect their smiles with porcelain, are particularly at risk for complications.