A makeup artist was called “Shovel Face” by bullies due to an extreme underbite, but thanks to jaw surgery, the cruel moniker no longer applies.
After six years of “hiding” her chin, Jordan Davies went through an excruciating four-and-a-half-hour operation which involved breaking her top and bottom jaws, then realigning and securing them in place with metal plates and screws.
The 21-year-old’s bottom jaw was so far forward that doctors told her the underbite would only become a bigger problem, and it would be a struggle to eat.
“As soon as they told me I had an underbite, it was in my head, like, ‘Oh god, I’ve got this problem,’ and then it got worse and worse,” Davies, who is a makeup artist, shared.
Jordan Davies was called “Shovel Face” by bullies due to her extreme underbite. Kennedy News and Media
She was so self-conscious about her jaw that she would try to “hold it back” and pose in a way to make her profile less pronounced, as well as avoid going out in public.
“I never fully felt confident in myself because I was always thinking that I couldn’t show [the underbite],” she admitted. “The comments did affect me, but I wanted to get the surgery done for me as well, because they said it was going to get worse, and that eating would become a bit of a struggle too.”
Davies had wanted surgery to fix her jaw ever since she was 15 and even spent three years in braces to straighten her teeth to prepare for the operation.
She decided to go through with a double jaw surgery in March 2022. Davies got the surgery done at the Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, South Wales.
“The surgery was always something I wanted done because I was self-conscious,” Davies said. “I was nervous, but excited. I’d been waiting a long time for it, and I just wanted to get it over and done with.”
Now, Davies is 10 months post-op and feels confident enough to go out in public and smile with her teeth exposed — something she felt she could never do before.
Although she was swollen at first, she’s extremely happy with the results of the surgery, and now likes the way she looks in a mirror and actually enjoys socializing with others.
“I look in the mirror, and I like what I see. It is me, and it’s not. When you’ve looked at yourself for 21 years and then you look in the mirror [after surgery], it is different,” Davies said. “At the start, I felt like this didn’t look like me, but I think it is just a process that you’ve got to go through.”
She added that she’s been receiving really nice comments from people telling her she looks “so much better.”
The cosmetician said she recommends this to other women who are in a similar situation.
“I can just be myself. I felt like I was only holding back before, like I was hiding this insecurity,” Davies said. “But now, I can go out and I can see my friends now without holding back.”
