Blacken the teeth is an old custom in Vietnam, dated from Hung Vuong times. Besides women, men also blacken the teeth and this custom used to be quite popular. A set of black teeth used to be one of ten traits of beauty of Vietnamese women in the past:
“First love the tuft of hair
Second love impassioned way of speaking
Third love dimpled cheeks of girls
Fourth love glossy teeth blacker than apple’s pip”
In order to have a set of shining black , glossy and charming teeth “Black teeth who dye for me”, you must follow specific steps. To begin dying, your mouth and teeth have to be sanitized until they are totally clean. In the first three days, you ought to brush and pick your teeth with dried betel-nut husk and stewed powdered coal mixed with salt. One day before dying, you need to chew lemon, hold it in mouth and rinse your mouth by white wine mingled with lemon juice. The effect of the first extract of this juice is to erode the enamel to make depression on it. This time is when you feel most painful and your teeth, lip, tongue, gums and mucous membrane swell and two jaws are very sore. The dye substance is made of shellac prepared 7-10 days ago with the right portion of shellac and the first extract lemon juice, depending on individual. It will be daubed on a white piece of cloth or silk. Using dye substance happens after dinner, then the pad will be replaced at midnight.
In the next morning, the pad will be disengaged softly in order to avoid rubbing off the paint, which has just been made in the previous night. After taking out the drug, it is imperative to rinse your mouth with fish sauce, or maybe bittern to eliminate the substance completely. The person dying must close his mouth nearly all the night to prevent from the pad going out of the mouth. He needs to do this two times each night and in seven nights. In this period of time he can only gulp food but not chew. When you see the dark red color, it is time for the second stage of spreading blackening solution on your teeth. Blackening solution is a mixture of iron sulfate and shellac and is applied in two days. Then you have to rinse your mouth with a drug called black powder liquid. The last stage is to fix it by sap from dipper made of coconut shell. This sap is used by this way: dry coconut shell many times under the sun, then burn it on live coals and put this burning shell on an iron bush-hook. From that coconut shell, a liquid of black sap drops out and it is used to apply on the teeth. After that, it creates a layer of ferment on the teeth. This stage is called “killing teeth”. After finishing this step, teeth are beautifully black.
Well….