I'll start off telling you a bit about me. I'm 20 years old and have been interested in piercings and tattoos since I was 14, and first discovered bme! I currently have 6 in ears ear(including the tragus I just had done) – 4 in each lobe, one in my left cartilage top, and my tragus, and on my right I have two in the middle of my cartilage one over the other. I have my tongue pierced, and both nipples, and 2 vertical piercings in my belly, one is a surface piercing, and my clit hood. I also have two tattoos, one on my lower back and one on my left hip.
At A Glance Author Jessica Contact jess@crushedenvy.com When It just happened Artist I forget :\ Studio Ace of Spaces Location Asheville, NC So yesterday around 6 we (my friend ken took me) headed off to Asheville, NC which is about an hour and a half away from where I live. First we went to the mall and I bought some 8g plugs, which are a goal for me to stretch my bottom holes into. Then we headed off to the tattoo shop. Well we managed to take a wrong turn and got about 20 minutes down the wrong highway road and had to turn back around, and I was getting nervous because it was almost 9 now and they closed at 10.
Well finally we get there about ten minutes after 9. Whew! So we go in and the cute piercer ask me what I want done. So I tell him I want my tragus done. He says ok. So I fill out the papers and give him my license and he makes a copy and tells me it will be $40, but not to pay until everything is done.
So I run to the bathroom after driving around forever I felt like I was going to explode and would prefer not to pee on myself if it happened to hurt! Then I went back into the room with him and watched him setup everything. He chose a cute regular cbr in an 18g to use because I have a small ear. He also said he would be piercing with a larger needle, but never did mention what gauge? I'm guessing it was 16.
He had me lay on the table with my feet at one end and my head at the other, then we made small talk while he was finishing getting everything set up. He mentioned that the tragus is also a piercing that the board prefers not to recognize, and stated he didn't mind, since he has both of his done and hadn't had any problems with them.
My friend Ken appeared in the doorway about then and started making me nervous to I made him go outside. Then the piercer was telling me that he wants me to do a breathing exercise when we get started. He would say one, and I was to breathe in, the let it out.. etc... I asked him if he pierced on two like Brandon does(the other piercer at the shop) lol because when I had gotten my hood pierced there Brandon said ok, one, two, pierce(ouch), three, and he said no, he would pierced after 3, thank goodness!
So, now came the time to start the breathing exercises for real this time. He said one, and I almost forgot to breathe until he said "BREATHE" lol. So then I took in a deep gust of air and exhaled, did the same on two... Then on three I got nervous and after three I could feel it go through my ear, in which felt longer than a few seconds, but I'm pretty sure that's all it was. It didn't hurt! It felt super weird going through the cartilage, but that's about it. I bled... it ran into my ear, which was quite nasty.... But it wasn't that bad, then he stopped to clean up my ear before putting the jewelry through the receiving tube.
After getting my ear clean he put the jewelry through. This didn't hurt, just felt like some pressure being put on my ear. Then he had to change his gloves, the pair he had on were too slippery to get the bead on with. After he got the bead on he cleaned my ear again and I got up to look. YAY! It's so cute. I'm really happy I went through with this, and I'm debating on getting one on the other side, although I was trying to keep my ears even, that would mean I'd have to get 2 more piercings in my ears... I don't know....
I paid him $40 and gave him $7 as a tip, it's not much, but hey, I'm a broke college student. He was also really nice and we talked a bit waiting on ken to get back... he was walking around outside somewhere. We talked about how my dad hates piercings and tattoos and doesn't know about most of mine, and about how I'm moving to FL soon, and that he grew up in Japan. He also gave me a HUGE bag of sea salt for free!
I came home, and cleaned out my ear, which still had blood in it, and went to sleep. I didn't bleed overnight, and I caught myself sleeping on it, and it wasn't sore when I woke up this morning at all! I am very pleased with the outcome. If you are in the Western North Carolina area I recommend going to Ace of Spades Tattoos and getting your work done, they are professional and have over 8 years of experience and are really clean.