Forget teeth whitening or veneers, women in Senegal are their quest for beautiful smiles to extreme levels – by tattooing their gums black.
Women in the west African country say their ancestors have been doing it for years and claim as well as giving a whiter smile, the procedure also protects the gums and stops bad breath.
The procedure was not well known internationally until recently when a video emerged showing a woman called Mariéme who goes under the needle.
More than 17,000 people have watched Mariéme endure the painful process online.
Mariéme said she had became ‘obsessed’ with the idea of getting her gums tattooed in order to achieve the perfect smile.
She pays a woman, who works from her family home, just 80p to tattoo a combination of burnt oil and shea butter into her gums.
The mixture is at first pressed onto her gums before a needle is repeatedly pricked into it.
Mariéme bears the pain at first, she is seen pushing the tattooist away in tears when the agony becomes too much.
With the black mixture smeared across her mouth and face, Mariéme is only able to have four of the seven layers she originally intended.
She tells the interviewer: ‘It hurts. I would never recommend this torture to anyone.’
However, despite the pain she later says she is more than happy with the results.
After a few days she says: ‘It really hurts. I thought I was going to die but I tried to hang on.
‘I don’t regret it now as I have beautiful gums. It’s necessary to be beautiful and attractive.’
The tattooist said the practice has been done for years in Senegal among women and even men in some tribes have their gums tattooed, although she admits woman are less interested these days.
She said: ‘Women should not have red gums. Her whole smile needs to be enchanting. A nice smile attracts men.’
She added: ‘Less and less women are doing this but some are still interested, especially women who are looking for a lover.’
The ointment they use is made of shea butter and supposedly stenghten the gums as well as enhancing the beauty of their smile.
It might seem weird to foreigners, but it is a fact that red lips and gums can look really weird on someone having a very dark complexion. It's not Marieme's case, and her lips perfectly match her face, but well, if she thinks she needs it… who are we to judge?
Fewer and fewer women choose to tattoo their gums, lips or chin, anf they are mainly of pulaar origins. Same goes for the traditional temple "scarification" (it is technically a scarification, but it's one centimeter-long and takes less than ten seconds do get over with, not as painfully barbaric as the word would suggest).
As for the needles, it's in fact harden sticks from a hay-like plant (although I know some uncautious people use toothsticks nowadays) bound together to make more punctures at one.
My grandmother has a gum-lip-chin tattoo that really suits her (it becomes less and less noticeablewith age) and all her teeth even though she's more than 80.
I wouldn't do it 'cause I see no point in it, especially since it would look weird on me, and because I'm a cry-baby, but hey, what happened to journalistic neutrality?
Are you trying to ptesent this as an ill tradition inflected on senegalese women? I've seen it done once, it lasts about 20 minutes and there is no major bleeding. They puncture gums with toothpicks, not with screwdrivers.
What ias that word you used? "Agony"? Please people, stay reasonnable, this is not excision!
(which also lasts only about half an hour, by the way, but is extremely dangerous).
Plus, you refer to the caption, that says "torture", whether I, on the contrary, refer to what she actually said (I understand Wolof, you see), and it is "pain".
I believe there is a gap between the two.
Are you sure you want to spread such biased information?
I'm not trying to be vindictive or over-protective of my culture, and I'm not pro or anti-tattoo, but we should keep things truthful and reasonnable, shouldn't we?