These are not your typical tooth fairies.
A handful of “fangsmiths” make their living fashioning wearable vampire teeth for New Yorkers.
Queens resident Ali Fangsmith, 40, has been creating pointy incisors for more than a decade. His clients range from fang aficionados to grandmas hunting for the latest denture accessories.
“I keep my prices reasonable to keep the fang society going,” he said. The vanity biters sell for $50 a pair.
Fangsmith uses a host of dental equipment — like polishes, buffers and “a lot of drill bits” — to create the custom canines. No license is required for the work.
“I worked in dental labs briefly,” he explained, though his true inspiration came from watching other fangsmiths in action.
The fangs, which take less than an hour to make, are molded to teeth using dental acrylic and slip on and off with no pain. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be used to cause pain.
“They are sharp enough to break skin,” Fangsmith warned. “I don’t recommend eating or sleeping with them.”
In fact, a bite from someone wearing the fangs would require a trip to the emergency room, explained East Village resident and master fangsmith Father Sebastiaan, 30.
“Human saliva is filthier than dog saliva,” he said. “Legally, I can’t advise people to drink blood.”
The popularity of movies like “Twilight” and shows like “True Blood” hinders rather than helps business, Sebastiaan said.
“Few ‘Twilight’ fans know vampires even have fangs,” he said. “The fangs in ‘True Blood’ are silly-looking. It hurts business.”
Movies like “Blade” and “Interview with the Vampire,” however, create more clients: People come in and request Brad Pitt- or Wesley Snipes-inspired canines, Sebastiaan said.
Ali Fangsmith said work is steady. Just last week, he fit a 65-year-old’s dentures for her birthday.
“There will always be new blood,” he said.
A real sucker for blood
Manhattan resident and vampire Seregon O’Dassey, 30, says she started drinking blood as a little girl.
“I would suck on a wound to help heal it,” she told Metro. “I liked the taste of it.”
Now she sucks droplets of blood from the pierce of a lancet designed for diabetics.
Her boyfriend is her main blood donor, volunteering his finger for the prick.
“Men have a much stronger taste,” she explained. “It tastes almost dirty.”
But she warned that choosing a donor is like choosing a sexual partner. “You should be safe,” she said. “It’s like sex.”
Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyatMetro.
