At A Glance Author Dana Contact Dana@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Girl with pink hair Studio Blue Banana Location Coventry, England, UK In my first year at University, I had my nostril pierced - it wasn't a particularly bad experience, but the piercer wasn't very professional and the piercing was not done well at all. It fell out the first night I had it and I bled like a stuck pig trying to put the piercing back in - I had to put an earring in because it just wouldn't go. The jewellery that the piercer put in was gold as well, which I'm sure isn't right, although on the other hand, my piercing was performed using a needle, which is one better than a gun!
Anyway, it all went horribly pear-shaped for some reason or another and although I loved my piercing, after two weeks it fell out (while I was drunk) and it just wouldn't go back in, no matter how hard I tried. In April of this year (2003), my boyfriend and I decided that it was high time I got my piercing redone, and he wanted a labret, so we did some research on BME, and off we went to Birmingham. The first time we went, we wandered round aimlessly for a bit, and decided that, since it was late, we would come back another time instead. Yes, we were very chicken!
So we came back another time and ended up wandering round Birmingham with pre-piercing nerves (although he was worse than me!) for about five hours. We had some food to prevent ourselves from fainting :-) and went to the piercing studio of choice. After standing around outside for about half an hour just plucking up the courage, they told us that they had run out of nose studs, but the jewellers upstairs would gladly do it. Alarm bells started ringing in my head, but we went upstairs and checked anyway - of course the jeweller was planning to pierce my nose with a gun, which I was not willing to do under ANY circumstance. I was actually really upset about this, but we went home anyway, although we did pop in to Blue Banana in Coventry on the way home to check out piercing jewellery. The shop was about to close, so we didn't have enough time to have our piercings done, and I was again disappointed...
So after all this hassle, we decided that we would have to go when I had a day off from work, however, being quite poor at the time, we couldn't really afford to go back to Birmingham and spend lots of time (and most likely money!) there, so we went to Blue Banana again instead. The hardest part was walking up to the counter and asking for the piercings - after that, our futures were sealed. After signing all the paperwork, we were patiently sitting in the waiting room, contemplating jumping out of the window, but they had already taken care of that by putting bars in front of the window!
I went under the needle first, as my boyfriend was again very very nervous - bless! I was quite scared and chatty while our piercer put her gloves on and got the needle ready. She told us exactly what was happening and answered my questions very well. Finally, the moment of truth had come, and the needle was at my nostril, ready to go in - I grabbed my boyfriend's hand, closed my eyes and... It hurt A LOT! I can't remember whether I screamed, but I think I probably did swear! It hurt most when the jewellery went into the piercing, but it was a short, stabbing pain, which was over as soon as it begun. I bled a bit, but apart from that my piercing was only a little sore and I absolutely loved it.
After that, it was his turn and our nice piercing-lady autoclaved his labret and sprayed some anaesthetic in his mouth, which he had to swill about and then spit out. I watched the procedure, which was very strange - it looked like she was sticking a screw-driver through his lip. This time it was his turn to squeeze my hand, and it hurt! Although he said it was more of an anticipatory squeeze, as the piercing itself was fine - his lip was so numb he couldn't even speak for about an hour afterwards...
Anyway at the end of that, and my boyfriend and I had lovely shiny new piercings and this time I managed to keep mine! Unfortunately, my boyfriend wasn't so lucky and damaged his gum quite a bit with his so that he had to take it out... On the up side though, we're already planning which piercings to have next! Although to be honest, I think next time I will spend a little more money and go to Birmingham - you should always make sure you research your piercer, which to be fair, we hadn't done enough and my boyfriend's piercing did go wrong, so be warned!