Your sixteenth birthday is always seen as a big one in Western culture. There are rights of passage a sixteen year old is finally able to take part in. Most of us rush out to get out license within a few days. Not that I didn't do that as well. But I wanted to do sometime more spiritual, something more personal. I wanted something that has more meaning than a piece of ID with a really bad photo of yourself on it. I had read that ear cartilage piercings were rights of passage in nearly all cultures around the world, in particularly African and Native American. The right of passage for a Native struck home as I have some Mic-Mac blood in me, so it sounded right. What's a better right of passage than an ear cartilage piercing?
At A Glance Author Melanie Contact serpis_maritimus@hotmail.com When Six months ago Artist Joe Studio A&J Body Piercing Location Queen Street, Stephenvile, Newfoundland, Canada
Three ear cartilage piercings.
I made an appointment with my piercer, Joe, at A&J Body Piercing for weekend before my birthday(to give me a bit of time to get over the first couple days before I had to go to school. And 'cause I wanted 'em). The morning of the thirteenth of January I woke up, cleaned my ears non stop for roughly forty-five minutes and drank half a letter of Tropicana orange juice(the other half came with me). I was going to be getting three cartilage piercings at one time and ones I'd heard some horror stories about, so I thought keeping my blood sugar up would be even more of a priority than usual. You should always eat and/or drink something sugary before getting any type of body modification.
My mom, my dad and my grandmother all came down with me to A&J. We talked to the girl behind the counter, Anita, Joes' apprentice and she asked me what kind of jewelry I wanted in each piercing.
She and Joe got the jewelry ready and set everything up. It was a hell of a wait while the jewelry and tools were in the autoclave, but god bless that machine!
When everything was ready, Anita called us down to the back room, where they did the piercings. I asked my mommy to come with me and hold my hand(And my bottle of orange juice). My dad and my grandmother stayed out in the shop, looking at jewelry, lingerie and the other various things A&J sells. We live in a very small town, and there's not a exactly a booming market for piercings, so they supplement their piercing business by selling other things as well.
The first piercing we did that day was the inner conch. I took a slug of orange juice and sat in Joe's spinning chair and, of course, span around. He commented on how no one really wanted the piercings, just to spin in his chair. He was good at making conversation to ease the nerves.
He asked me what general area I wanted the piercing in. I said "Somewhere near the middle". He marked it with his little purple marker and asked me to check it in the mirror. I asked him to move it up a little, then we were good to go.
Joe did the piercing free hand and pierced into a cork. The needle went through like a knife through butter. There was a small sting, but no horrible pain like I had heard described. There was no popping sound. He put in the jewelry, a 9/16" barbell and that was the inner conch done. I thought the jewelry was a bit long, since it'd hit my head every time I turned my neck, but I was glad to have it when I had to clean the crusties. It made it very easy haha. My inner conch was the only piercing I got in my right ear that day.
We did the other two, during which I drank the other half a letter of orange juice. When we were done and left the piercing room to pay, dad and grandma were telling us how Anita had been talking about me to everyone who came into the shop.
"There's a young girl back there getting three cartilage piercings at one time! What guts!".
It cost ninety dollars for the three piercings, thirty dollars a pop(no pun intended). They also recommended Dragonmist which I hadn't heard anything good about, for ten dollars. But mom wanted to buy it. I was happy with my sea salt, but hey, she was paying.
Do yourselves a favour, and don't use it. It smells like pinesol with pepper in it(it's mostly the tea tree oil you smell I think). And it makes your ears really greasy. I tried it once, out of curiosity and my rook started bleeding like crazy, so I didn't use it again.
Tomorrow, the thirteenth of July, will be the six month mark, and my inner conch seems to be totally healed. It doesn't weep lymph, it doesn't get red and swollen, no flare ups. And it's beautiful!
I was nervous the first time I changed the jewelry. Roughly two weeks ago I decided it was time. I changed the barbell to a labret post with a spike for the bead that mom bought me. She thought it'd be nice if it "looked like a nail coming through my ear" haha. The labret post is really good in it. I'd sometimes catch the barbell when I was tucking my hair behind my ears or something like that, but the flat back of the post fixes that.
All in all, my inner conch is really great and I'd recommend it to anyone who is thinking about it. Dragonmist I don't recommend, but I love the inner conch supper a lot. Inner conches are thumbs up, all the way!
Coming soon, the stories of my Rook and Anti-Tragus.