I always liked body mods. I wanted so many of them, but I come from a very strict Italian family. I had my tongue pierced at 14, and my nose at 15, but being a rambunctious eighteen year old, it just wasn't enough. I brought up the idea of more mods to my mother, who told me I should just go get my navel pierced like all the other nice teenage girls. Unfortunately I'm not swayed by a two inch long string of jewels dangling from my belly button, and sticking to my shirt (no offense to anyone who has it).
At A Glance Author Angela Contact Angela@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Marie Studio Iris Location Montreal Living in Montreal, I see a dancing plethora of girls with pierced septums on a day to day basis. It's become so common here that I almost get shocked upon meeting someone if they don't have their septums pierced. You probably think this makes me a sheep, but make no mistake, I don't get mods to be an individual, I do them for simple aesthetic reasons, so after long enough, I decided the septum ring was hot and I wanted one.
I brought it up to my parents and got shut down, hard, and fast. They gave me a speech about responsibility and pain and wasting my money and dismissed the idea immediately. So I pretty much thought I should throw that idea out the window all together. A few days after this incident a friend of mine at school brought up the retainer. For those of you who don't know a septum retainer is a horse shoe ring without balls that can just be flipped up into your nostrils and makes the piercing unseen. I made up my mind right then and there to get my septum pierced as soon as humanly possible.
After about 2 days, I went down to iris to get it done. I didn't have a ring and it was pretty expensive so my friend took the horse shoe out of her lip and they sterilized it for me. Forty five minutes later, we walked back into the shop and down the stairs to the piercing room. I don't usually get all that nervous for piercings so I just thought this one would be a breeze. She asked me to lie down and put the clamps on. They were pretty painful, but I figured if I could handle them, I could handle the needle (I'm a moron). She asked me if the placement was alright and handed me a mirror. I couldn't see the dot so I figured it was alright. She asked me to breathe in and when I exhaled she shoved the needle though. In that millisecond I managed to let out a profanity, clench my fists, close my eyes, and begin to sob a little. The septum was the most painful piercing I had ever experienced in my life. After I paid and left I spent about 10 minutes trying to flip it up into my nostrils. It was awfully painful, but I succeeded. Surprisingly enough the septum is a very fast healing piercing. Other than taking a warm Q-tip and wiping off the crust every morning, rotating it in the shower and cleaning it once a day with salt water solution, I didn't have to give it much special care and the pain disappeared within a couple of days.
Another thing I noticed is that the septum doesn't heal fast. I spent an entire week on vacation and decided to take it out for the trip, seeing how I'd be in the ocean and with my family twenty four hours a day. I had it out for an entire week and was convinced it was close. I got back home to Montreal and realised, to my great surprise that it wasn't. After a good shoving match, I managed to get my piercing through with a little bleeding, and a little pain. Both the bleeding and the pain disappeared in a few hours though.
My advice to people who want septum piercings: brace yourselves. The initial pain is pretty bad but the healing process is fast and painless. It's a piercing that can be hidden and suits a lot of different people, in my opinion at least.
If you're wondering: no, my parents had never seen it, I had it 6 months. The reason I don't have it anymore is because I got my septum ring in the winter time. Winter time is cold season in Canada (and probably in the U.S too) and I learned that blowing your nose with both a nose ring and a septum ring could be somewhat of an ordeal. So I eventually took it out. I plan on getting it redone in the next few weeks anyway. What can I say? I guess I'm a masochist.