The piercing experience I will describe dates back to last monday. I have been fascinated with earrings for as long as I can remember (pre kindergarden age). So far, I wasn't pierced myself. Instead, I enjoyed the pierced ears of the girlfriends I had over the years. Other than that, I didn't tell anyone.
At A Glance Author seldon37 Contact seldon37@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Filip (from Australia) Studio Naked Steel Location Berlin, Germany In late 2007 I rediscovered lucid dreaming, reading a book by Frederick Dodson. A lucid dream is a dream that you recognize for what it is, and then you can do what you want. After a while, I realized that quite a few lessons learned in dreams apply to my waking life just the same. Cutting it down to one sentence: I can do whatever I want. Could be, that it's unclear what exactly the consequences will be, but whatever. In a lot of cases it's perfectly O.K. to just go ahead and deal with the consequences later :-) Coming back to earrings and piercings: I realized that I sort of wanted to have my own ears pierced for quite a while, but never seriously thought about doing it, because I was afraid of adverse reactions from my colleagues, clients, grandparents etc.
A week and a half ago I realized that I hadn't seriously considered piercings before and started to consider seriously right then. I decided to just get the piercings I wanted and then just see how everybody will react, instead of trying to figure it all out before. At that point in time I thought I would just get one of my earlobes pierced twice. Later I played around with some small clip on hoops and realized that I found cartilage piercing much more interesting. I knew that I like them on women, but at this point in time I realized that cartilage piercings, one at the top of each ear, were what I really wanted for myself.
Choosing a studio took two or three hours- there's quite a few in Berlin and I wanted a good one. After a while of browsing experiences on bme and wildcat (a local German community) I knew I would go to either Chandler at "Für immer" or Dirk Hückler at "Naked Steel". For both of them I found a lot of positive customer reports on the web. Interestingly, both places are just one subway station (e.g. walking distance) from where I live. That fit perfectly well with my observation that when I'm doing the right things, success comes without effort. Monday being Chandler's day off and me wanting to go for it that day I called Naked Steel. They told me that Dirk himself wasn't there that day. A colleague of his, named Phil (Filip) was available, but somewhat busy. I decided to just go there in the evening, find out if he had time and just come back the next day if he didn't.
Naked Steel shares rooms with Flash Tattoo- they have separate rooms for piercing and tattooing, but the "front desk", waiting room etc. are shared. I went inside and took a seat on one of the couches. A cute girl got her nose pierced and a second one let Filip check whether her lower lip piercing was doing O.K. (which it was). Then I talked to him and he decided to take me as the last customer for the day.
Filip was patient and took a lot of time to find out what exactly I wanted: Holes at the very to of my ears, not in the rim, but in the back. The angle should be so, that the rings would fall to the outside, rest on the outer rim, but hang down only slightly, i.e. be almost horizontal. I showed him with the clip on rings I had brought. We decided on 10*1.2 mm titanium captive bead rings, but for marking, Filip used steel rings of the same size. This part was a little tricky, b.c. while the clip on rings stayed in place and could be adjusted easily, even in the difficult spots I had chose, the cbrs would easily slip or tilt in one direction or the other. Filip was really patient and continued until I was completely satisfied.
The actual piercing hurt, but didn't take long. Inserting the first ring (right ear) also hurt and took a little longer. At that point in time I hadn't figured out that just breathing deeply is the best thing to do and Filip noticed this was hurting and was being extra careful, somewhat prolonging this part. We shortly discussed this and he proceeded with the left ear. Again, piercing was quick, and this time inserting the jewelery was also quick, b.c. I had realized to just breathe and Filip also felt it was OK. for me to do it relatively quickly.
Walking home I was really happy. Finally did it :-) The ears where slightly red the next day, and hurt very slightly. Nothing to worry about, but observable. That day and all following days I disinfected the area as instructed. On the second day, they were almost back to normal and on the third day the color was completely normal. I went to see Filip again, who confirmed that everything looked good and healing already. Now, six days later, everything still looks good, perfectly normal color and no pain. If I really pay attention, I can just feel that the rings are there. And it's a good feeling :-) I'm very happy that I'm now following this passion openly and directly started to consider getting more piercings once the first two are healed.
I can absolutely recommend Naked Steel and in particular Phil/Filip. He has been working in Australia for several years and moved to Berlin last year, so while there are quite a few satisfied customers' reports about Dirk (his boss), I haven't found anything about him prior to actually going to Naked Steel. This is why I decided to write a slightly longer report. Way to go!