At A Glance Author Michelle D Contact Michelle D@bme.anon IAM Flutterfly When A week ago Artist Jon Studio New Tribe Location Toronto, Ontario Since becoming interested in body modification, I have acquired a significant number of ear piercings. Currently I've got 3 sets of lobe piercings, a tragus, a rook, and a conch piercing. My most recent addition to my ears was a 16g snug piercing.
Since my first 'fun' ear piercing (in other words, not lobes or helix) I started looking at BME's ear piercing gallery to get ideas for future piercings. When I first saw a snug piercing I didn't like the looks of it at all, so I lost interest after 1 page of the gallery. However, I soon found myself back on the snug section, looked at all of the pages and still couldn't bring myself to love the piercing. Regardless, I found myself reading more about snug piercings, mainly in the BME Encyclopedia, with the occasional reader experience thrown in.
One day I found myself actually considering getting my own snug piercing. On November 21st, my roommate, Wendie, and I headed to New Tribe to get pierced.
It was a long journey to New Tribe as we found ourselves facing large crowds of Santa Clause Parade spectators and it was especially crowded at the University Ave./Queen St. intersection, right where we got off of the subway.
When we arrived it was fairly quiet and empty in the studio. Wendie and I talked to Lizzie and Eric at the counter for a while. I was trying to decide if I wanted a snug piercing that day, or a different piercing on my 'wish list'. Wendie was expressing concerns over her future labret and the 4 of us were looking through a tattoo magazine and playing around with my digital camera.
Before getting pierced Wendie and I slipped out of New Tribe and headed to Subway to get something to eat. Wendie hadn't eaten yet that day, and we all thought it was important for her to get some food in her before being pierced.
When we returned from Subway the 4 of us chatted some more and Wendie and I finally moved on to filling out the consent form. In the past couple of months I've spent far too much time filling out those consent forms, but of course they are necessary.
When we were called to the back to Jon's piercing room, he informed us that he would be doing Wendie's piercing first. After an emotionally traumatic experience that ended in postponing Wendie's labret I was asked, by Jon, if I was still going to go through with my piercing. I was, despite being slightly disturbed.
I was very distracted during my piercing as it's hard to pay attention to what's happening while your roommate/best friend is sitting next to you crying from her piercing (or rather non-piercing) experience.
Luckily, I've been pierced many times before and know what occurred, even if I wasn't paying total attention. Jon set up the equipment and disinfected my ear. He then asked me where I wanted the placement and I said that I thought I wanted it in line with my tragus piercing. Jon made the dots and had me lay down, or maybe I was already laying down... again, my attention was elsewhere as I wanted to comfort my roommate, but couldn't.
Before I was pierced I briefly thought about the pain. Normally the pain factor doesn't even cross my mind. However, the BME Encyclopedia states that snugs are "extremely painful" piercings. I was hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as my rook.
Jon told me when he was about to pierce me and then went for it. Some of you are reading this experience because you are interested the pain factor, right? If so, of course there was some degree of pain, since I just had a need rammed through my ear, but it wasn't nearly as bad as my rook. That is my personal opinion and pain differs for everyone. The needle remained through my ear while Jon grabbed the CBR off of the tray. I really wanted a picture of the needle in my ear (hence the reason I had my digital camera with me), but that didn't happen. Jon inserted the jewelry, which was pretty uncomfortable. When the bead was put in place and the ring closed, I was told I was finished.
I sat up and was hesitant to look in the mirror. I am never really happy with my new piercings, but they quickly grow on me. I looked at Wendie for her response and she said it looked a little low. With that, I couldn't resist looking, hoping I wouldn't be horrified. I walked over to the mirror and agreed that it did look low, but decided that it was partially a result of the CBR being of such a large diameter. I decided that when it was healed (or before, depending on how long I would wait) I'd get a smaller diameter CBR or a barbell if the curve of the CBR resulted in problems, as happened with my tragus piercing. I commented that I thought my piercing was okay and restated that it would grow on me to which Jon said that it had better. Hm.
Jon gave me an aftercare card, but didn't explain the aftercare to me as he assumed I was familiar with it, which I was. Then we were finished and Jon headed out front and told Lizzie to give Wendie a refund. We remained in the back while Wendie further regained her composure and then went out to see Lizzie. Lizzie gave Wendie her money back, chatted with us again, briefly, and offered some comfort to Wendie.
On the way home my ear was pretty sore, but that didn't prevent us from stopping in at another piercing studio after we found our way through Santa Clause Parade spectators again. 2 hours later (the piercer was understanding, took his time and calmed Wendie completely), we were back home.
That night and the following few days my snug was quite sore. It was to the point where I wondered if I was going to have a lot of problems with the piercing, get annoyed with it and remove it. For the most part it has felt and looked fine. However, today it has been very swollen, almost double the size of the snug (the actual anatomy) on my other ear. I'm hoping that I just knocked it and that it's not a start of an infection. I've already been there (with a gunned helix, years ago) and don't want to go through it again.
My aftercare has been different than the suggested tea tree soap aftercare as recommended by New Tribe. Instead, I've strictly been doing sea salt soaks. This has proven to be the best for me, after experimenting with different aftercare regimens with previous piercings.
All in all, November 21st's trip to New Tribe was a decent experience, though not one of the best that I've had. I do have more piercings planned, but I've decided that I'm going to expand my horizons even further and check out another studio that I've heard many positive things about, through my peers and, of course, BME.