I got both my nostrils pierced on different occasions.
At A Glance Author Mademoiselle Contact Mademoiselle@bme.anon IAM adazewa When A month ago Artist J/Reka Studio Punktured/Chioko Location Brighton, UK/London, UK The first one was in October 2006, at Punktured in Brighton. Now, I'm from London and with the exception of my lobes (which were done by my mother at the mere age of a few days old), I have had all my other piercings done in one studio (Chioko in Camden, London). So I was incredibly nervous at the idea of having a piercing - my first facial piercing - done in a place I had never been to by a person I didn't know. But I had heard so many good things about Punktured so I knew I'd be in good hands.
My piercer was a woman called J. After picking out the jewellery I wanted, we went into the actual piercing room which was quite spacious with two mirrors. While she was preparing, I confessed I was quite nervous of being pierced in a place I was not used to. She calmed me down, her laughter was quite infectious. J put on her gloves and stuck a cotton bud up my left nostril to clean it. We then marked several spots on my nose and I spent ages conferring with my friend on which one I preferred. After cleaning my nose again, J used a clamp – everyone says this hurts, it was painless – and advised that maybe I would want to close my eyes. I told her I'd do this as long as she let me know when the needle was going in.
I breathed in. The needle went in. I breathed out. It was done.
I laughed because there was no blood and my eyes hadn't begun to tear up. There was a slightly painful feeling as J inserted the bar in but I didn't mind. There was no pain whatsoever; in fact, it was my least painful piercing. I couldn't wait to see it in the mirror. I shrieked, J shrieked, it was amusing to see her share my excitement even though she had probably done a million nose piercings before. After giving me some aftercare instructions, which I was pleased to find they were the same as what my usual piercer told me, I paid her and went on my way. She told me to clean it twice a day with a sea salt solution. I usually do the LITHA method – Leave It The Hell Alone. I don't touch any of the piercings unless I start to see the "crusties", other than that, I don't do anything. I find it works better as the piercing is not disturbed as much.
The only problems with my nose piercing were that I kept knocking it in my sleep. I'd wake up and find the bar half way out. It became such a regular occurrence that I expected a bump later on and sooner or later it appeared. After attacking it twice a day with hot compresses and diluted tea tree oil, the bump disappeared. I've forgotten the technical term for "the bump", sorry. Another amusing episode with my nose was when there was a spot just under the jewellery but I hadn't been able to see it. I was brushing my hair in a mirror and wrinkled my nose and there was some sort of explosion of pus. I thought my nose was infected but it turned out to be a spot. I suppose you had to be there.
Since then I have had no problems with my nose piercing, I recently switched it to bioplast/PTFE as I'm a big fan of these things and actually believe they work wonders to healing piercings.
Even though I'm not a symmetrical person, I had looked in the mirror one day and realised I needed my other nostril pierced. I just couldn't put it off any longer. In January 2007, I went to my usual piercing place, Chioko in Camden, London where Reka (wrong spelling) asked me how my other piercing had been while cleaning up the piercing room. After spending several minutes making sure the piercing would be symmetrical to my left nostril piercing, she cleaned my nose again, changed her gloves and got ready. She explained to me that she was going to do it freehand because she found better to do so. I was slightly scared as the piercer in Punktured had used clamps but I trusted Chioko and I also thought it would be amusing to compare the two different ways of getting pierced. One again, I closed my eyes, breathed in and out and it was done. She put a titanium bar through and then changed my left nostril bar to a matching one as I had asked her to do earlier.
After giving me the aftercare (sea salt solutions), I paid her, took another quick look in the mirror and went on my merry way. Surprisingly, I have not had any trouble with my right nostril piercing. I haven't knocked it in my sleep; I haven't had any problems with it at all. In fact it's doing very well and I'm quite glad I got it done. I think it's been about 3 weeks since I had it, it feels so much longer. Already I'm planning my next piercing but may wait a few months as I have a seriously bad immune system and don't want any of my healing piercings to reject.