This is Unladylike. I'm Kristen. Today's episode would not be possible without two seemingly

unrelated things that happened all the way back in 1840. And don't worry, we're not going to

say they're long. That year, America's first dental college was opened and the first US patent

for a little invention called the camera was filed. And guess who filed that camera patent? A dentist.

Nearly 200 years later, we are living in the Venn diagram of those two events. The ubiquity of

cameras and the celebrity culture they made possible has us so teeth conscious that earlier this year,

an article in register dental hygienist magazine I am not making that up warned that smile

dysmorphia is on the rise. Smile dysmorphia, yeah. As in patients coming in with totally healthy teeth,

excellent paradigm, convinced they need more drastic interventions like cosmetic veneers and gum

contouring teeth whitening or orthodontia that can brighten and straighten teeth, but these days

that is baseline. To achieve perfect teeth by today's standards, you're going to need some fake ones.

Social media and cheaper veneers have definitely played a huge role in our collective oral fixation,

but American culture has been selling us aspirational teeth for ages. Cosmopolitan magazine,

which of course is found right next to register dental hygienist magazine. Cosmo in 1956,

in one of its issues, dedicated four pages to an article had lined dental cosmetics. Now your

teeth can be made beautiful. Cosmo told the story of a woman named Jane who rarely smiled,

Jane was socially awkward, Jane couldn't land a higher paying job because Jane was plagued

with quote, an unsightly hodgepodge of teeth. Jane had however managed to land a man,

and with her wedding approaching, Jane sprang for today's equivalent of a full set of veneers.

And yes, it was expensive, but Jane didn't care because thanks to her new chompers,

she landed a new job and a raise. Although this was 1956 and Jane might have been forced to

write out of that job once she married, but let's not tell Jane, she's been through enough.

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