Should you be one of those who find these black teeth rather disturbing, you are not alone. Ohaguro has it’s very own yokai (Japanese demon), called ‘ohaguro bettari.’ If you spot a beautiful woman in a kimono at night, standing on the grounds of a temple or shrine, beware: She might look very pretty from behind, but if you get close enough, she turns around and shows you her real face – eyeless and terrifying, with a huge mouth full of sharp and pitch black teeth!
As mentioned before, ohaguro hasn’t only been popular in Japan. In China, Thailand, Laos, or Vietnam, all kinds of women and men used to blacken their teeth for various reasons – and some still do. Be it to show off their marital status, to make a point about maturity or simply because they like the look of it – don’t immediately think of decay when seeing a pitch black smile. Black is beautiful, after all!
