Last March, I got my first needle piercing. My left nostril was decorated with a titanium ring, and I walked on air for the next week. I was beautiful. I had self respect, I took care of myself for the first time in a long time. I ate right, I exercised, I did all those things that one is supposed to do all the time, but which I had never done. Suddenly, I was worth looking after. And all it took was a simple piece of jewellery.
At A Glance Author popecatapetal Contact popecatapetal@bme.anon IAM popecatapetal When A week ago Artist Mark Studio V Piercings Location Dublin, Ireland More piercings followed, and after each one I was granted a surge of self confidence. I got some strange looks from family and friends, but I didn't care. Each new piece of jewellery felt right. They made me proud of myself.
But one thing always plagued me about my piercings. As with everything in my life, I wanted them to be symmetrical. All subsequent piercings were done either in the centre of my body, or in pairs. My nose remained the lopsided focus of my attention. My boyfriend, you see, does not share my love of symmetry. He requested that my nose remain half complete, and I left it so for as long as I could. But each time I got a new piercing, I wondered afterwards why I was still unbalanced.
Finally, I decided that this could not go on. I would have to get my right nostril pierced. I explained matters to my boyfriend, and he understood. I would be able to regain my symmetry.
I mentioned to my friend that I was going to get pierced, and she asked if she could accompany me, as she too had the piercing itch, but her piercer had recently left for greener pastures. I agreed to introduce her to Mark, and we arranged to head in the next day.
After a lunch of burritos and enchiladas the next day, we made our way to V Piercings, and waited in the waiting room for Mark to finish with his other customers. Lotta decided to get her tragus and upper conch pierced, and I would of course get my nostril.
When Mark was ready, he came out and we conversed a while. Lotta filled out her forms, and I mine, and then we went in to the piercing room to watch the equipment being laid out. I was quite excited, as this was the first time I would see anyone else get pierced, as I generally go either on my own or with my boyfriend.
I watched as Mark marked up Lotta's ear for the two piercings. For the conch, he used a regular needle, but for the tragus he used a cannula needle, which leaves a plastic sheath inside the fresh hole. I enquired about this, and it is generally used for piercing areas which are fiddly, so that inserting the jewellery following the needle would be too complicated. Instead, the needle is removed and the hollow plastic tube allows easier jewellery insertion.
Once Lotta's pink-jewelled bars had been inserted, and the blood had finished pouring from her tragus, it was my turn. I was too excited to just get a simple nostril piercing by now, so I asked Mark what sort of septum jewellery he had in stock. This wasn't just an impulse decision, though – I had been thinking about the septum piercing for a few months. It seemed like a logical thing to do, getting two nose piercings at the same time, as I would be cleaning my nose anyway.
So we picked out a 1.6 mm bullet keeper for my septum, as Mark prefers these for healing than u-shaped retainers. He says they move about too much, and you have to keep cleaning the crusties off, so as not to irritate the hole. We also picked a 1.2 mm ring for my nostril. The ring was only 8 mm in diameter, smaller than the 10 mm one I had had for healing my left nostril, but he reassured me that as I have healed so many piercings already, I know the danger signs, and that he knew I could handle the smaller diameter.
The nostril was first, and it took some time to mark it up, as it had to be exactly level with my existing one. Finally, the purple dot looked right. He put the ring on my nose and let it sit on the dot, to check the placement, and it was just right. I sat on the bed and chatted while he warmed up the receiving tube by rolling it in his gloved hands. The now-warm tube slid up my right nostril, and he positioned the needle.
I took a deep breath in, and then released it slowly. The needle pushed against my nose and then through the skin and into the cartilage. It was fast, but just as intense as I remembered from the first time. There is resistance through the cartilage, so the pain feels quite blunt as it goes through. But it was over in less than a second, and the needle was hanging from my nose in the same way as it had the first time, causing my boyfriend to faint.
I wiped my eyes while Mark prepared the jewellery, then took another deep breath for the insertion. It was unnecessary this time, but I know from experience that, on some occasions, the jewellery can hurt just as much as the actual piercing (see my VCH story for more details). The ball was clipped into place using the very daunting-looking ring pliers, and I was able to look at my almost-symmetrical nose in the mirror. I say almost symmetrical because I have a smooth segment ring in my healed piercing and a captive bead ring in my fresh one. But it is still much better than it was before.
Next came the septum piercing. Mark asked me to lie down for this one, as it gives him better ease of access. As he was checking my nose for blood vessels with a tiny torch, he explained that he did septums free hand, rather than with clamps. He wasn't doing it just to look flash, although it was a nice side effect, he said. It was just that he found that the clamps had a tendency to distort the nose, causing the piercing to end up a little crooked.
As he finished, he started to position the needle, and I jumped. I wasn't quite ready yet, still being a little shaky from the first piercing. This was the longest gap I had had between two piercings yet – normally if I'm getting two at a time, such as with my snakebites or my nipples, they'll be pierced directly after each other. With this one, though, there had been a break of almost five minutes, and the after-piercing rush had started turning into the shakes.
I apologised profusely to Mark, and he said that there was no reason to apologise, that some asshole had just poked a hole in my nose. So I lay on the bed for a minute, getting my breathing back to normal, and then I nodded that I was ready.
The needle was repositioned, rather higher than I had been expecting. I started my deep breaths in and out, a little faster than normal, and then I felt the needle. It was sharp, and very quick. It was much easier than the nostril, due to the lack of cartilage, but a little tougher than an ear lobe or a labret piercing. It wasn't bad at all, and in my relief I started to giggle. It took a few minutes for me to calm down, and then Mark inserted the bullet retainer. It stung a little going in, but it wasn't very painful. The next bit, getting the rubber o-ring on, was rather fiddly, and there was some uncomfortable twisting of the septum, but it was all bearable with some controlled breathing. I was quite surprised afterwards how little he had bumped off my fresh nostril ring during the septum piercing, and I thanked him for it.
All in all, an interesting experience. I am blissfully happy with how my nose now looks. It is still a little lopsided, due to the difference in jewellery, but soon I will be symmetrical again. Already, I feel beautiful and confident about how I look. It's been nine months in the making, but my complementary nose ring has finally been born.