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I’ve read about people getting tattoos on the weirdest places of their bodies, but this one just beats them all. Never before have I heard of people getting their gums tattooed.
Not in any particular design, but just a uniform black color. This is actually a popular practice among women in West African countries like Senegal, because over there apparently, black gums are a thing of beauty.
Tattooed black gums are especially popular in small towns and villages like Thies, in Senegal. Women here practice this ancient tradition to get a smile that is considered more attractive. Of course, the process is nothing short of painful.
Marieme, from Thies, is one such young girl to have gone through the procedure. I watched a documentary on YouTube that covered her journey from having regular gums to the more desirable black variety.
Before she went for it, she said, “I want black gums to obtain a more beautiful smile. It’s become an obsession. I do fear the procedure. But I’ll be OK.”Fast-forward into the documentary a bit and you’ll see that Marieme was far from okay. The woman who administered the tattoo did not work out of a parlor, as you would expect, but from the backyard of her home.
Her family pays no attention to her, and she herself doesn’t do it for the money but for the love of it. She charges little over $1 for her work, and believes that black-tattooed gums are the way to sound dental health.
“I’m doing tattoos out of my own free will. It’s not something my mother taught me. By tattooing the gums we can take care of our teeth. You’ll never see our gums bleeding.
We have healthy teeth. We eliminate everything that’s damaging for the mouth and never have foul breath. When you don’t expose your gums when you smile you won’t notice it. But it gives you a more attractive smile,” she said.
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