At A Glance
Author	mina
IAM	mina
When	A month ago
Artist	Julie
Studio	Coldsteel
Location	Camden, London, England

I can remember when nose piercing first became fashionable. It was the very early 90s and those who had their nostrils pierced were considered "cool" and "rebels". I was about 7 at this point. From that moment on, I knew I had to have a small piece of jewellery in my nose too. When I was 16 I had my navel done, as that was the "piercing of the day", and I had sort of forgotten about my nose piercing. Over the following two years I went on to have my tongue, tongue web, rook and tragus pierced, but still had this need for a nose piercing. I was a bit apprehensive about getting it done. My nose was only one of two facial piercings I planned on having, and yet despite its popularity, having a facial piercing that was so "in your face", seemed quite extreme to me. And so this is why it's taken me 11 years to finally decide to have it done.

I took two of my closest friends, Carla and Sreeja with me to get my nose pierced. Sreeja was thinking about having hers done and so wanted to watch the procedure before she went ahead with it. I went to Coldsteel in Camden, London. I was a bit late for my appointment but Julie was busy with another client anyway. So while I waited I filled in the necessary forms. I never recommend this, but I lied on the form. The question was "have you consumed any alcohol in the last 24 hours?". The real answer was "yes, an awful lot", but I knew they wouldn't pierce me if I said that. So I put "no". It had been 22 hours since I had drunk alcohol, so it was only a little white lie, most of it would have gone by then. Anyway, after Julie had finished, she came and fetched me. She took me through the whole procedure, and asked if I had any questions. I didn't so she marked my nose where she intended to pierce and told me to check it out in the mirror to see if the proposed place ment was ok. I was almost definitely expecting her to put it somewhere I wouldn't like. I'll admit that for a week before the piercing I too spent time trying to mark a good spot with eyeliner. But she got it perfect right away. I jumped back on the bed and lied down, with my head to one side. The side I was facing was right opposite the mirror so I could see everything that was happening. That probably wasn't the best idea. She told me to close my eyes so I wouldn't get freaked out about anything, but it follows logic that when someone tells you not to do something, it's inevitable that you're going to do the exact opposite. I opened my eyes briefly to see a huge metal thing coming to my face, which freaked me out. "No no no", Julie said, "don't worry, that's not the needle, it's just the receiving tube". Phew! So I closed my eyes and told myself to keep them that way. I started my slow, deep breathing, and on the third exhale she pierced. I'm not going to lie, it did hurt. Obviously. Having a needle shoved through your flesh i s going to hurt to a certain extent, but it's certainly not unbearable and before your mind has time to register what's happened, the pain is fading to a dull ache. If I'm honest, it hurt an awful lot more than I expected it to. But again, it's not unbearable. She pushed the nose screw through and said it was done. I opened my eyes, and they were blurred with a tear. I wasn't crying, but it just makes your eyes water. By now I had so much adrenaline rushing through me I almost felt drowsy. I could have happily fallen asleep right there and then. I was, however, conscious of a huge blob out of the corner of my eye. It was blood. A lot of blood. Julie cleaned me up with some q-tips, but it wasn't stopping. Every few seconds, Julie had to fetch more q-tips to clean up the blood, there was so much of it. 10 minutes later it was still heavily bleeding. I knew it was my fault. It was the alcohol the night before that had thinned the blood, which made it harder for t he blood to clot. Finally, the blood was slowing enough for me to get up and have a look. I have to admit that at first I didn't really like it. It looked so huge, and all of a sudden the placement didn't look so great. I gave Julie a tip, because she had done such a great job at cleaning me up. I left, somewhat unhappy.

I got some ibuprofen on the way home and swallowed a couple just in case it started to hurt. I gave it a good clean as soon as I got home as well. My aftercare routine is always the same for all of my piercings. ¼ tsp of sea salt to ½ pint of boiled cooled water. Julie gave me a good tip as well: Pour some of the salt mixture into an egg cup, stick my nose it in and blow bubbles. It was starting to look a bit better without all the dried crusty blood all over it.

The first day after the piercing, I cleaned my nose in the morning and I think I was getting more and more used to it. It was looking less big, but I still would have preferred a flat jewelled screw, instead of something round, that sticks out. Once it's healed, I'll change it. I was quite surprised that it wasn't hurting. Usually my piercings swell up and hurt like hell the day after. I often forgot it was there.

Now, 2 months on, it's looking and feeling great. It played up with me a bit, developing an unsightly lump, but with lots of TLC, it soon went away. It hardly crusts anymore (gotta love that iron) and I'm so pleased with it. Happy piercing to all.