Ever since I was a little kid, I loved the look of tattoos and piercings. I asked to get my earlobes pierced when I was about 6 years old. No-go with my parents, who are very uptight and maybe brainwashed?
At A Glance Author Tadd Contact tadder_nervosa@bluebottle.com When A week ago Artist Mike Studio Valiant! Custom tatttooing Location York, PA The summer before I joined the navy, I went and got my left earlobe pierced with a gun. This was about 4 weeks before shipping off to boot camp. I thought it looked pretty good. Well, one night I guess I partied a little too hard...When I woke up the next morning, I looked in the mirror and noticed a red dot on my earlobe, void of the stud that was there last night :( I was pretty discouraged after that because I knew I didn't have enough time to do it again before basic training, as I would have to take it out at MEPS anyways.
While I was in the Navy I got 3 tattoos(one of which was out of regulation!), a frenum piercing, and a prince albert. The frenum was off-center and a bit crooked, so I took it out.
I have had enough piercings, seen them done, and researched enough on my own to have a pretty good idea of what should happen. This is about the worst one I've ever seen, and it was done to me!
So I got out of the Navy 2 months ago. I haven't cut my hair since and was excited to get my earlobes pierced for good so that I could stretch them to about 1 inch. Finally!
So, having nearly no money after leaving the Navy, I went to
Wisconsin, and then to York, PA. I walked to the package store to buy a pack of cigarettes, and as I was standing outside lighting up, about 9 PM, I looked up and saw Valiant! Arts studio. It was in the top of a little business center with a bank, insurance company or whatever. I hoped this guy was a piercer, too.
So I walked upstairs to find a heavyset man talking on the phone. I sat on the couch and looked through his portfolio. I wasn't all that impressed, but I wasn't there for a tattoo anyways. When he finished his phone call, we bullshitted for a while, then I asked him if he could pierce my ears. "Sure, no problem." Cool. Little did I know what was about to happen!
He takes out a plastic organizer with many pieces of jewelry in it. He asked if 14 ga. was OK. I said it was fine. He also pulled out 2 little hematite beads that I thought would look good, but I didn't expect him to put them directly on the jewelry with which he was about to pierce my ear with! About 10 14 ga. CBRs in a plastic ziploc baggie. I asked if they were autoclaved...well, he said, "they should be, I don't know why they would send them to me like this if they weren't autoclaved..." I should have walked out right then, but I didn't. I asked him to make sure. He said we could just wash off 2 of them with alcohol. Fuck, this is a bad idea.
So this jewelry is "sterile" now, right? haha. The clamps and needles were in the little autoclave bags (surprisingly?). So he places the clamp on my left ear after we agreed on placement. The needle goes through...and out...and then ripping...and tugging...
I surmised from the roughness that he didn't follow through with the jewelry, instead, he pulled the needle through AND THEN pushed the jewelry though a free hole. Ow!
I "suggested" the follow-through method and he said that would work...
So the second one went through without a hitch, or ripping, or pulling...but both pieces of jewelry have large gouge marks from where the tool used to close the rings were applied.
My lobes are healing fine, but the procedure was unfamiliar to me, unexplained to me, and quite unnecessarily painful for the first one. I guess it's been a crapshoot for me finding a good piercer, because of my crooked and unsatisfying frenum, my Prince Albert that was a little too forward (but right where I want it now). I posted some things on the forums of www.bodymod.org and got some people that say they have had great experiences with the piercers in San Diego, which is my next relocation. So I can't wait to go back to California, stretch my lobes like I always wanted once they heal, get my labret pierced, and settle down somewhere instead of always being in transit.
Good luck, and please research before you go and get whatever it is done. I don't want my experiences to happen to anyone else because it's expensive and a bit depressing when you notice a week later that it wasn't exactly the way you wanted. At least they just close up if I take them out.