Teeth-whitening procedure turns into drama for actress
JULIE WALTERS has warned of the dangers of teeth whitening after the actress was left in agony by the procedure she thought would remove stains caused by drinking green tea.
Walters, who has previously spoken out against facelifts and cosmetic enhancement, has admitted that she was not above one attempt to improve her looks. It was, however, not a success.
‘‘I had a go at bleaching my teeth,’’ she said in advance of Julie Walters: A Life on Screen, a retrospective of her career to be broadcast in Britain last night. ‘‘But they hurt so much that I stopped.
‘‘The dentist gave me something that you put on. It did get rid of all these coffee stains, but then I thought, I can’t do this anymore – it’s too painful. So I gave it up. You had to do it every day, and I couldn’t possibly do it.’’
She returned to the dentist, who told her to take paracetamol for the pain. ‘‘It can’t be right for you if it hurts that much. It’s obviously attacking the nerves in my teeth. I drink green tea, and quite honestly, if you drink green tea all your life, which I’ve drunk now for nearly 20 years, your teeth do begin to look a bit like wood. So, it’s like Elizabethan times – wooden teeth.
‘‘I thought, I don’t want them bright white, but I’d quite like to have them nice and clean. I thought: ‘Oh, my teeth. Don’t go near them. I can’t have a cup of tea, they’re so painful’.
‘‘And then I thought it had gone away and I had an ice cream on a plane. Well, I nearly hit the roof.’’
Teeth-whitening has grown in popularity in the UK. Last year a survey of cosmetic dentists revealed enquiries about laser teeth whitening had grown 116 per cent.
Teeth-staining can either be extrinsic, caused by substances such as coffee and cigarettes, or intrinsic, which has causes including certain antibiotics, injury or excess fluoride consumption.
Although green tea is not thought to stain as badly as black tea or coffee, it can still cause teeth to go brown. Some studies have shown green tea drinkers actually have better oral health than coffee drinkers, attributed to catechins, an antibacterial substance in the tea.
Walters, 64, said that she did not judge others for wanting facelifts, but that she could not undergo surgery herself. ‘‘I’d rather be who I am. I don’t mean I’d want to let myself go. I like having my hair done. But I wouldn’t want a facelift, no.’’
She said that she would feel uncomfortable with the Hollywood lifestyle, in which facelifts have become the norm for actresses, and that there was increasing pressure on actresses in Britain.
‘‘It is more and more the culture here. I would go to America if I was offered a part in something I really wanted to do – yes, I absolutely would. But I’m not somebody who thinks, I must go to America, because that’s where it’s really happening. It depends entirely on work.
‘‘We always adopt what the Americans do later. Cosmetic surgery is more popular than it was. I’m not putting down anyone who has it, I just quite like to think I can grow old and it’s fine. If people don’t like me because I’ve got wrinkles then I don’t particularly want to be with them either.’’
Meryl Streep, who co-starred with Walters in Mamma Mia!, has said that the year she turned 40 she received three scripts with parts for witches.
Walters said that she also noticed a change in the quality of scripts she was offered.
‘‘You’re lucky to get a leading part once you’ve passed 60. You do notice that there are lots of token older ladies, but unless the charac- ter has some kind of story – some kind of development – I can’t be doing with that, really.
‘‘ Paddington [in which she plays housekeeper Mrs Bird] was fabulous. She was quite a funny little quirky character. I quite like that sort of thing. There’s more of that supporting stuff, as you get older. But you know, that’s the way it is.’’