I fought very hard with my parents (especially with my dad) to get my lobes pierced, and everything else I poked after that was relatively easy -for some reason they didn't really care much after that first step, and I decided quite soon that I liked piercings and that I liked lots of them. However, I didn't have much information about modifications back then, as I was only 13, we didn't have the internet, and my only sources were teenager magazines, hardly the best place for this sort of research.
At A Glance Author strawberry Contact strawberry@bme.anon IAM strawberry When Five years ago Artist Sally the apprentice Studio Laserline Location Florence One day I read an article about a singer in a magazine. She wasn't an especially popular singer, just an unknown chart topper that came and went over the summer. But what kept me interested weren't her words, nor even her music, but what she had in her ear: a small hoop somewhere in the middle of the cartilage, in that fat, hard location that, I later was told, fell under the name of rook.
I didn't even know you could pierce that, as I'd only had my lobes done, and that already seemed a huge thing. But the rook was cute and different, and I toyed with the idea of getting one myself.
We didn't have a proper piercing studio in Siena in 1998, and the places where you could get your ears and nostril pierced where either malls, or jewelery stores, or small places that sold little things made of silver and semiprecious stones and similar, where girls looking more young than competent gunned studs in a backroom. Even in my almost totally uninformed status I realized that I couldn't get the piercing I wanted with a gun and, besides, I was wise enough not to feel good about the whole thing carried out by people less than expert in a non-sterile environment (admittedly, as you will realize if you read further, I was wise enough to avoid that, but still not wise at all, but you do have to start at some point and I started there). Of course I knew about piercing, proper piercing, with a needle and with proper materials, although I didn't know exactly how it was performed, how much it hurt, and what the standards were. I knew there was a place in Florence, one hour or so away from Siena, that did tattoos and I'd heard they did piercing, too, and I managed to find their number and address in the yellow pages. The name of the place was Laserline, which at the time sounded cool and wild.
It took all my courage to phone Laserline and ask about piercings, and whether I could come the following week. The girl on the phone was friendly and chatty, and said I could come without appointment any day, which made my day. I'd got so excited already.
My mom didn't really object, and my dad didn't care. I still don't know why they made such a fuss about my lobes and not about the rest, but I just took advantage of the situation and went on with my modifications. Laserline was a bit out of Florence, so someone had to drive me there, but as my mom couldn't leave work for a whole afternoon, she asked a friend of hers, Astrid, to take me instead. She trusted Astrid and I was friends with her, too, so she seemed the perfect candidate to come along.
After much searching we eventually reached Laserline on a Tuesday afternoon. The place is creepy: a small studio at the back of a building, in the middle of a seedy, suburban area full of sexy-shops and petrol pumps, with a beautician's shop on the same floor. However, it looked really nice to me, and I felt good and safe there, and besides it wasn't like I have any other place to go if I wanted to have my rook pierced (I used to call it "this bit of my ear", but rook sounds somehow better now). Astrid and I rang the bell, a girl (a beautician, not a piercer) opened the door for us and we were ushered in and took a seat in front of a small room, and told the piercer was about to arrive.
20 minutes later the piercer hadn't arrived yet. This, combined with the bad, unhealthy beauty centre/piercing studio mixture, should have made me leave. I would leave now. But I waited patiently for another 10 minutes until the piercer arrived, followed by a girl. Fabrizio, the head piercer at Laserline (in fact the tattooist-turned-piercer) was a tall, bulky man with long blond hair and a small moustache. He had his ear pierced and some small tattoos, but he looked pretty "normal", especially compared to the girl who'd arrived with him, who introduced herself as Sally. Whether this is her real name or not I did not investigate into, but I'll call her Sally here anyway. Sally had a fully shaved head, with only a small ponytail of white and pink hair hanging off her scalp at the bottom of her head. She had a thick layer of makeup, multiple facial piercings, including both cheeks, a medusa, a labret, a number of ear piercings; she had also a model body, barely covered by a miniskirt and a cropped top. I immediately liked her, and trusted her -she had the looks I loved, admired and longer for. She was my girl! Fabrizio had something about him that made me think of someone's dad, not like the idea I had of piercers.
Anyway, they were both really kind and asked me what I wanted to get done. I showed them my ear, pointing at the location I'd selected, and they said, no problem. I chose a small, 14 ga surgical steel captive bead ring.
I didn't fill any form before the piercing. I don't know whether they were outlaw or if there weren't proper rules in Italy in 1998 for body modifications. I wouldn't have been able to sign anything anyway, as I was only 14, but they didn't ask for ID, proof of age, nor if Astrid was my mother. Again, I would run away from a place that doesn't have a risk/consent form and where underage kids are pierced without parental consent or age check, but I didn't know all these things, so I still felt safe at that point. After choosing the cbr, Sally disappeared with Fabrizio in a backroom and said she'd be calling me in 5 minutes. 5 minutes later she emerged, and apologized because the "piercing room" was not available as Fabrizio had a tattoo appointment in 10 minutes, and said that she'd be piercing me instead, in a room in the beauty centre. Reluctant, I agreed. I didn't mind her piercing me, but I didn't really like the idea of the beauty institute room. Still, I went along with her, with Astrid wishing me good luck as I left.
Sally made me sit on a small bed, the sort of bed where you get your leg waxed or massages, and asked me to point out exactly where I wanted my piercing. I marked small dots with a black pen and she said it was fine, high enough and with enough flesh to pierce -luckily, the placement was the only right thing about this piercing, and I still have a perfect rook now, years after the whole mess.
Sally wore gloves (which she didn't change during the whole procedure), tried and failed to clamp the area, and asked me if it was okay to pierce me without clamps. "Why is she asking me?" I wondered, but she looked confident enough and I thought maybe she was just trying to tell me what was going on and trying to be nice and chatty. So I said, fine, pierce me as it suits you best, you are the piercer. "Oh, I'm the apprentice" she corrected me, and I began to have doubts, but didn't really dare say anything.
Sally made lay on the bed, as she felt I was more "balanced" like that. My ear cartilage was already sore, after the attempt at clamping, and I understood that it was going to be more painful than I imagined. "Are you ready?" asked Sally, and I nodded.
A sharp, horrible pain went through my ear, from there to my neck and down my spine. I heard a weird noise as the needle went into my skin, and a lot of pain. Blood filled the conch of the ear, and it kept hurting. I was scared, and just wanted to leave, but I couldn't with a bleeding ear and a needle stuck in it -for a moment I thought it was over, but it wasn't at all, as Sally had to put the cbr in.
It proved to be a bit of a task for poor Sally the apprentice, who fought really hard with the minuscle hoop to go through the ear, and getting the ball in was a major problem for her.
I, in the meanwhile, kept bleeding and trembling and, Astrid told me, was pretty pale and shaken. The pain had been bad. More to the point, I didn't have any pain experience and it was far, far worse than I'd planned. After much fiddling, and with Astrid looking at her (she'd come into the room and neither Sally nor I had stopped her) in fear, Sally put the ball in, cleaned my ear, and I was ready to go. I paid and left, with Astrid asking if I was okay every five minutes. But even if the pain had been bad, it was fading fast, and I was high on happiness endorfines released by my body immediately after (a lovely sensation of being high which I'm still looking forward to every time I get pierced), and we went home happy and satisfied. Again, it's the lack of standards of quality that made us so happy.
The first few days were okay. I hadn't been given a proper aftercare, nor specific suggestions as to which products I should use and how I should look after my new rook, but I didn't bother. I kept my ear clean with an antiseptic solution found in my bathroom cabinet and tried not to touch it. Sleeping on it was painful, but I figured out it would pass.
After a week or so, I noticed that the swelling was not going down, and that my piercing was red, sore and looked really bad. I could feel a gland, little, but round a fat, at the back of my ear, and even I knew it was a sign of infection. I mentioned this to my mom, who got really paranoid and decided that I should be checked. We went to our GP surgery, where a gentle doctor looked at my ear and decided it was infected, but that an antibiotic spray would sort me -no need for oral antibiotics, nor anything. She also noticed that a small cyst was developing behind my piercing, like a hot, yellowing big pimple at the back of my ear. He tried to squeeze it and pus oozed out of the hole. It hurt like hell because it was very inflamed, but the doctor said it was a good thing that he could squeeze the pus out because otherwise I might have needed an incision -and more antibiotics, and suture and much more pain.
I was told to apply the spray -a very strong, alcohol-based antibiotic, used also for throat ulcers- three times a day for a week.
After seeing the doctor and after the first few days of treatment my piercing felt much better. My mom, luckily enough, didn't tell me off for getting pierced in the first place, but was quite nice about the whole thing, and I'm still grateful for that. I'm also glad that the doctor actually helped, and didn't just say, "remove that thing", not least because that would have trapped the infection in.
After some more time, once the infection cleared, my rook felt much better, and even if it's not a "stable" piercing (it does get irritated very easily even after many years and I do have to be careful not to sleep on it for too many nights in a row) it's more or less healed over time.
My rook experience has been a pretty bad one. After that I didn't ever come back to Laserline again, and I have educated myself. My interest in body modifications has grown stronger and stronger, and I began collecting articles and books about the subject.
What have I learnt? The basic rules:
1) If you don't feel comfortable, leave
2) Look for a studio that is a studio -not a backroom, or a beautician's room, nor anything else, but a proper studio
3) Look at portfolios, and try and find an experienced piercer, or at least someone with some good manual skills
4) Look for a studio that respects rules: if they break age, consent and such important principles, what guarantees they will not be breaking hygene/contamination rules either?
5) EDUCATE YOURSELF: THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT DOING SO!!!
I was stupid and unexperienced, but it's my experiences that's made me who I am now, a lover of modifications, a piercer myself (however in training), and a good customer, informed and educated. If you want to get a piercing, don't make my mistakes, and try and find the best studio, with the best, most reputable artists you can find. Never compromise, not for money, nor for anything else. It's your body, after all. I was lucky, coz I only got a mild infection, but getting piercing in such a bad environment could have cause much greater trouble.
And, looking back, what about the rook? It's such a cute piercing, but it takes ages to heal and it does hurt, even if it's a very satisfactory modification to get, at least ear-wise. I'm glad I have done it, even if it came at a high price.
If you have any comment, or want to ask me something, feel free to email me.
DISCLAIMER: What I did was not safe. Please always do your research carefully and never, ever compromise your own safety.
Said that, my respect goes to every trainee piercer/apprentice (I'm one of them, too): guys, learning is a vital part of the process and you cannot learn without practise, but make sure you do know what you're doing before piercing someone!