Basically, I've seen people with gauges and I always thought it was really cool, obviously part of like the skater punk-rock image which I belong to. I had gotten a left ear piercing when I was 6 years old with a piercing gun, but I guess nowadays those are frowned upon =(... Anyways, I wore an earing until I was about 12 (I had a pirate sword shaped earing for most of the time but then eventually I got bored of it and I stopped wearing it.)
At A Glance Author Ray Contact Millertime627@yahoo.com When Six months ago Artist me Studio in my bathroom most of the time Location NY I had always wanted to gauge my ear but a few months ago I decided I was gonna do it. Surprisingly, my earhole wasn't closed up but was really small though, which is why the first thing I did was I put in a safety pin. I cleaned it first with alcohol and soap of course and put it in. I wore this for about a week so I could start off with like an 18 sized hole, and during this time of course my parents didn't like it and thought I was weird and most of the people in my school are composed of preps and jocks who were like "oh my god why do u have a safety pin in your ear!"
After this my friend's mom had given me one of her 14 sized gauges since her hole was too big for it now. It was a pincer [google it] and even though it was pink I didn't really care. I learned a lot of stuff online about gauging so I decided I was gonna try not skip sizes to reduce the pain. The only thing I could find that was a 12-size was a binder-ring from my school agenda. I sharpened the edges with scissors so that it would slide in easier, and it looked just like a real pincer. After this, over the next month I went from a 10 to a 8 to a 6 to a 4 by simply using golf tees. I had a bunch of old golf tees so I cut off the top part of all the tees so that they all looked like tapers. After going up sizes I always cleaned my piercings with alcohol and soap, and if there was ever any bleeding I used peroxide.
When I had my 6 size piercing it was with a white golf tee and when people in school asked me what it was I told them it was a dinosaur tooth because it looked just like one. People actually believed me. My mom always complained about my ghetto earings but later gave up. I had my size 4 in for a while, and wanted to get a bigger size.
It sucks that I live no where near any shops that sell real gauges. In my room one day I found a metallic silver button from my pants and I decided to use it. It was a 3, even though there
is no real size 3 it goes from 4 to 2, but this was right in between. I couldn't just put it in because it wasn't like a taper going from small to big. So I found a silver pen cap, and I put that into the hole and put the silver button on the end, slipping it in. The petroleum jelly I used for lubrication helped a lot. Basically, I've had this size 3 gauge in for the past 2 months, since I like it and it's shiny and whatnot. Also, it looks just like a real plug, so everyone thinks it's real. My next goal is to go up to a 2 and stay there, using a flesh tunnel, one of the metal ones that you can see through. Those are my favorite. I still haven't been able to get one since I live far away from any store that has them, and my mom probably wouldn't let me get one online. All I really want is for people to be able to look through my hole and see stuff on the other side and be like "Whoa." Who knows, maybe sometime I will get a 2 and then go up to a 0. If I do get a 0 I'm definitely stopping there, at least I think so.
In conclusion, gauging can become addicting and is worth it. I've never gotten an infection because I always clean out my piercing daily. When I clean it, I apply alcohol first, and then rinse it off with water, and then I clean it with soap and water. Some people say it's good to rinse it with salt water, but the idea seems weird to me. I use to get little crusties around my earhole once in a while during healing, but nothing other than that. I don't know why but I kind of liked the crusties, like they were fun to pull off, don't ask me why. I hope my rambling experience helps anyone.