The Campbell Academy Blog | Colin Campbell (212)

Tooth gems and Instagram

(It’s not that I can’t it’s that I won’t!)

More years ago now than I care to remember, (perhaps 20), I used a small bit of white filling material to put a tooth gem on someone’s front tooth.

Do you remember those?

You used to buy them from dentist suppliers and stick them in people’s mouths, basically with a bit of glue.

They would smile and they had a “diamond” on the tip of their tooth.

I remember my outrage when I heard that hairdressers were doing this “off licence” and then I realised that I needed to leave that to hairdressers.

I think I only did one.

I was having a conversation about this with my Wife Alison today and explaining that I think we’ve turned into dinosaurs.

I was shown a video online of someone’s practice last week where they had done some “cosmetic” work on a celebrity who had been happy to give a testimonial video.

The work that has been done is nothing short of mutilation and I would happily stand in front of anyone and explain that.

I was and am outraged that not only is this work being carried out, but that it is blatantly being pushed forward in video formats on the front pages of people’s websites, only to encourage more people to have it on the basis of celebrity endorsement.

So, I am a dinosaur.

Any number of people are quite happy to have poisonous s*** pumped into their face to make them look a little bit better/younger/faker.

Some of the plastic surgery that continues to go on is appalling, the mutilation of teeth is probably just the short end of the stick, in terms of the other stuff that is happening.

It is sad, to me, that as a profession we cannot stand up against that and we cannot tell our colleagues that we think what they are doing is wrong and it is damaging us in the short, medium and long term.

Sure, some of the “entrepreneurial” guys will get that bit right for a short while, but the damage that it will have caused to the reputation of the profession overtime will never, ever, be repaired.

So I learned from my experience of tooth gems and how uneasy I felt about it and how I wanted to leave it to someone else and the mutilation of upper and lower anterior teeth for a short Instagram promo post will pass as well.

It is not that I couldn’t do that, it’s that I refuse to do that and I completely understand that as the tide comes in around me, I might have to stop and walk away and hide in my hole.