I can remember wanting a helix piercing from a very young age. I was always looking at other people's ears to see if they had one that I could ask about. I started my research with google (yes maybe BME would have been better but I hadn't come across the sight at this point). I learned that it should definitely not be done with a gun which surprised me, I had had my lobe piercing's with a gun so why not this one? And then I came across a picture of someone's shattered cartilage... maybe not then.
At A Glance Author Luce Contact greenfrog416@yahoo.co.uk IAM greenfrog416 When Three months ago Artist Can't remember Studio Millenium Location Southampton I asked around my friends and various places in Southampton about studios and which ones were good and bad. Everyone seemed to point me to Millennium so off and I went and found that sadly it was shut. I was so disappointed but at the same time glad because I wasn't feeling especially bad that day.
I persuaded my brother to come with me, moral support I guess and we went into Southampton on my day off work (finally, I was out of the horrible place that is Tesco's) and wandered into Millennium.
My first impression of the place was that it looked very clean. It smelled of disinfectant, not the nicest smell but reassuring when you are about to have a piece of metal shoved through your ear. I spent a while looking at the various pieces of jewellery, trying to imagine what each one would look like in my ear and tried not to get anymore nervous. There was a mega queue that day so I guess I ended up waiting for a good half and hour and by the time the piercer popped down to say 'Your turn', I was a bit of a mess. The guy who had gone up before me was having a PA and had screamed the place down which really didn't help, but then again I can sympathise with that.
I decided that I wanted the piercing done with a ring, it looks so much better than a stud in my opinion and the dude said that it would heal better. I sat down on the bed/chair thing and he piercer asked me what colour ball I wanted on the end of the CBR, black, silver or orange. I chose the silver one and then everything was all ready. He drew a small dot on my ear where he was about to pierce and asked me if I liked it. It was perfect, so he opened the seal of the needle in front of me, held it to my ear and pushed through...
Well, there certainly was a sharp pain but it wasn't half as bad as I was expecting. He pushed the needle through with speed which really helped and the ring was in before I knew it. It was the most beautiful piercing.
I paid my £20 and he went through all of the cleaning instructions with me, clean it twice a day with Savalon spray. I pottered off to Boots to buy the spray and started the regime that night and OMG my ear hurt so much. It was really badly swollen and I had real troubles getting the cotton bud anywhere near the actual piercing to clean the crusties off.
It had bled a little during the night, but cleaning the day after was a little better. The swelling had gone down but I still couldn't move it at all.
A few weeks went by and the piercing was getting better and better, and I was taking very good care of it, bar the odd night sleeping on it by mistake. I decided that I wasn't so keen on the CBR and bought a smooth segment ring. Now, getting the bead off the CBR was a pain in the whatever, ears are in such an awkward place! But eventually I did and the segment ring went in nicely (I had bought a 1.6mm whereas I was pierced with a 1.2mm, so I was a little worried that it wasn't going to fit) and it looked so much better.
The smooth segment ring made cleaning the piercing much easier as I could twist it all of the way around to make sure there were no crusties and I found sleeping on it much nicer without the bead.
All in all, my piercing experience went really well. The studio was really professional and made sure that I knew how best to take care of my piercing. I would say that it is really important to keep cleaning your piercing as you can cause yourself real problems if you let it get infected. And choose your studio with care, make sure they are clean and know what they are doing. If you are uncomfortable, then leave and look at other places.
Go for it, your body is your temple. Make it was beautiful as you like.