The Pactice of soft tissue piercings like nose, ear, eyebrows with ornaments and jewelleries, and tattooing of the body are all ages old which started in Egypt, China and Medieval around 5000 years back. They were considered as a sign of religious and social rank in the community but among today’s generation, it is regaining popularity as a fashion and style statement. That was all regarding body piercing and body tattooing which are style statements even today. But a new craze among the generation-next is the dental tattooing. In the past couple of years, dental tattoos have become very popular among the college-goers and young professionals because today’s youth are more savvy adventurous than ever before. This generation likes to make an impact among their peers by creating a distinct style-statement.
In India, dental tattooing is gaining popularity from past couple of years. But in the west, it has been around from past 8-10 years. In the west it was made popular by the hip-hop singers and rappers by sporting them in their videos and then youngsters started aping them.
Girls and boys of age group 14-35 years usually go for dental tattoo treatment. Girls choose angels, stars or apples while boys choose more macho designs like geometric patterns or skulls. Other popular designs are animal-shapes, name-initials, musical-symbols, heart and arrow, bull, victory-sign, mickey-mouse, arrow and lips.
There are 2 types of dental tattoos. They are; Temporary tattoos and Permanent tattoos. Temporary tattoos are designs in the form of templates which are stuck on the teeth with the help of composites after enamel-etching. This procedure takes about 15-20 minutes. Permanent tattoos are drilled on the tooth. Once done cannot get them removed. This procedure takes longer time perhaps hours.
Most preferred areas for dental tattoos are maxillary canine, maxillary lateral incisor, premolars and molars.
Procedure to make dental tattoos;
After the crown cutting is done in the dental clinic by the dentist, the impressions are taken. Then the impressions are sent to the dental laboratory. In the laboratory the crowns are fabricated. The designs are chosen as per the preference of the individual. Then a skilled artist typically does the tattoo work, carefully painting a miniature design onto the crown. The crown is then delivered to the dental clinic where the dentist fixes the crown, onto the tooth.
But, however there are certain disadvantages of the dental tattooing which the patient should be made aware of, before the procedure is begun. These are;
• There may be increased plaque-accumulation around the tattoo, which may make the tooth more prone for caries as well as for gingival and periodontal problems.
• Dental Tattoos sometimes get abraded with time and may need to be replaced.
Thus my personal opinion as a dentist is that, we as professionals should advice the youngsters to keep the style and fashion aside and be more oriented towards preserving the teeth which have much more important functions to do.
Various designs used as dental tattoos.
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