Talk:Ohaguro

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Somewhere I think to have read that the teethblackening was mainly to hide the teeth (not attract attention to it). In the same manner that Japanese women are traditionally 'supposed' to cover their mouth when laughing. Somehow showing teeth was taboo, it seems. If this really the case, it might be interesting to add to the article. - SuperMidget 20:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lead Poisoning?

From the article, it states that soaking iron in tea or rice wine eventually caused lead poisoning in those who used the resultant ink. Forgive me for being ignorant, but how does iron + tea/rice wine = lead? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Phantom Thief (talk • contribs) 2006-10-25 4:32 (UTC).

Either the statement is wrong or medieval Japanese women practiced alchemy sucessfully! I tried googling combinations of "ohaguro (お歯黒)" "ohaguro ink (鉄漿)" "lead (鉛)" "poison (毒)" etc in Japanese but nothing turned up. (Btw, using iron + rice wine, i.e. acetic acid looks true.) I'm putting {{verify source}} for the time being, and in the mean time I might look for some reliable sources... --朝彦 (Asahiko) 15:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Three encyclopedias, "Encyclopædia Nipponica", "Encyclopædia Genre Japonica", "Heibonsha World Encyclopedia" all did not mention any harms nor was the word "lead" mentioned. A highly specialized book dedicating all its pages to comprehensive knowledge of ohaguro (forgot its name but I can look it up) did mention some slight harms but lead has nothing to do with it. Deleting the sentence! --朝彦 (Asahiko) 17:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)