I got my first ear piercing when I was 11. My parents let me get it for my birthday. I got it at some girly jewelry store with a piercing gun at like 20 gauge. There was no blood, and it was hardly painful at all. I got my left earlobe pierced a second time when I turned 14. Around the start of my freshman year of high school, I started stretching them. First I put in a nail that was about 14 gauge, then I bought a set of acrylic tapers that went up to 8 gauge from some store at the Mall of America. I stretched them up to 8 gauge pretty fast, it was a little painful, because I went up to 8 gauge in about 2 weeks. I just kept pushing them in further every day in the shower.
At A Glance Author mason D Grove Contact masongrove@comcast.net IAM mason D Grove When A month ago Artist mason grove Studio my house Location minnesota Then I bought a six gauge taper, and I stretched the lower hole up to six gauge. A couple months later, I decided to get my right earlobe pierced too. At that time, I knew a bit more about piercings and stuff, so I had my mom take me to an actual tattoo parlor to get it pierced with a needle. My mom really hates me getting mods, so she made me sign a contract that said that I wouldn't stretch any bigger than six gauge, and I wouldn't get any more mods until I turned 18. I was a little reluctant, but I signed it anyway, I figured I could wait until I was 18 for anything more. But that contract was broken, because I just couldn't wait, once I set foot in that tattoo parlor I was hooked on piercings. I got even more hooked when I discovered bme, I love this site.
But anyway, I signed it, and we went to Ace Tattoo in some suburb of Minneapolis Minnesota. There was a short wait, and I spent it looking through a book of all the tattoos and piercings that the artists there had done, and I was just awed by how awesome they were. I got it pierced at 14 gauge, which was pretty much painless, and they put in a plain captive bead ring. It healed just fine, and when it was completely healed, I stretched it to 6 gauge in about 2 weeks, I kept them at 6 gauge for about 6 months, then after a trip to Thailand, where there were tons of pierced, and tattooed people, I decided I wanted to stretch them more.
I decided I wanted to have them so they would be really easy to see through with a tunnel in them. So, I decided to stretch my right earlobe to zero gauge. But this time, I had to hide it. So I bought a six gauge earring with a large , flat front, and a large , screw on back, so I could make the post bigger, while the front hid the increasing size from my parents. I started making the post bigger by cutting a short section of the plastic ink tube from a jelly ink pen, and slid it onto the post. It was a perfect fit. I got it wet, and it slid into my ear with a small bit of difficulty. Then, it was about 4 gauge. Once that healed a bit, I wrapped a small amount of electric tape around the ink tube part that was on the post, but I cut it so it wasn't too long to be able to screw the back on. Over a few weeks, I stretched up to zero gauge by adding electric tape whenever it healed enough. Once it was zero gauge, I just kept it hidden with that earring until my hair grew long enough to hide it. Which was about a month.
Then I bought a couple zero gauge earrings. My right ear lobe piercings were still at six, and 8 gauge. A couple months before I finished my freshman year, I started to carve my own earrings on a mini wood lathe in woodworking class. I decided that I would stretch both my bottom earlobe holes to a half inch, so I could make cooler earrings for them on the wood lathe. Also, I would be the only person in my high school that wasn't a senior to have ear lobes more than zero gauge, and there was only 1 senior who had over zero gauge ears. So that would be really cool, and unique I thought. But the problem was that I was going to get a mohawk in two weeks, for the end of the school year. I decided I would try to stretch both my zero gauge right earlobe, and my six gauge left earlobe to a half inch in just 2 weeks.
So, I got to work making my own tapers. first I made a taper to go from zero gauge to double zero gauge, out of a pen cap. I had to carve off the clip, and everything, so that it would be smooth. that night, I pushed the taper into my zero gauge hole, and in two pushing sessions, I got it all the way in. I held it in place with a couple of small latex rubber bands that I had a million of for my braces (they pull your jaw forward) so I used those as o rings. I made sure my hair covered it well, so my parents wouldn't see it, and I took showers late at night, so they wouldn't see me with my hair wet.
I used the same six gauge earring with the pen part to stretch my six gauge lobe to 4 gauge, I left each in for two days, then they were ready to stretch more, so I used a fine tip sharpie marker cap with the clip carved off to stretch my right earlobe a bit bigger, and an aluminum eyeliner cap to stretch my left ear lobe a bit bigger. I kept that in for four days, because they were getting a bit sore and swollen, and by four days they were feeling better, so I put a taper I made from the end of a plastic paintbrush handle.
It took two days to get that all the way in. It looked pretty cool with that, because it was sort of clear dark red colored. I put the double zero gauge pen cap I had used for my right ear in my left ear. My ears were pretty sore for a couple days, and I waited for 4 days to put in a bigger one in the left ear, and 6 days to put a bigger one in the right ear. this time I put a normal sharpie cap in my right ear, (which is exactly a half inch). But I could only get it part way in.
The next day a couple of friends and I went to Valley Fair amusement park. The first ride we went on was called the Steel Venom, and it went sixty-five miles an hour. At the end of the ride, I checked my right earlobe with the sharpie cap in it, and I found that the speed of the ride had created enough wind blowing into the sharpie cap , that it had pushed it the whole rest of the way into my ear. That was awesome, because I hadn't even felt any pain, because I had so much adrenalin from the ride! So then, the rest of the day, I held my hands over my ears on the rides, so they wouldn't be blown out the back of my ears.
When I got home, I made a tunnel out of part of a sharpie cap, sawn off of the rest of the cap, so it wouldn't be so long. The next day, some jewelry that I had ordered online came in the mail, including some skin colored plugs to hide them even better. I put one of those in my right earlobe, since it was stretched the whole way to 1/2 inch. A few days later, I put the paintbrush handle taper in my left ear. Then, on the morning of my haircut, I was finally able to put a sharpie cap in my left ear too. My mom went crazy when she saw them, and she kicked me out of the house for a day. Luckily, I had another house, so I walked over there, and got there at the end of the day.
The next day was the last day of school. I wanted to wear a threaded tunnel in my right ear, because that one was the most healed. I tried putting it in, but the hole wasn't healed enough to handle getting the threads pushed through it, so I put in a plain double o ring plug that I had made from olive wood, and wore that. I stuck with the sharpie cap in my left ear, because it wasn't healed enough to switch earrings. After that, it took a couple weeks before I could easily get in the threaded tunnel, and another couple weeks until I could get in flared plugs, but now, they are good, and I have made a ton of awesome plugs for them. I love the size too, I think a half inch is perfect! But , just warning you, its not a good idea to stretch as fast as I did, because it doesn't always work as well. You could rip your ears, so don't do it as fast.