Ever since I can remember, I have loved eyebrow piercings. They have always held a special place in my heart. So on my sixteenth birthday, instead of asking for a car or a sweet sixteen party like most of my peers do, I asked for an eyebrow piercing. And I got it.
At A Glance Author CrankyGrrrl Contact CrankyGrrrl@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Desta Spence Studio Adorn Body Art Location Beaverton, OR After I returned home from school on my birthday, my Mom came home from work early to take me to Adorn Body Art, a local piercing and tattoo studio right near my house. The woman who pierced me, Desta, seemed very nice and knowledgeable. She helped me choose my jewelry, a 16 gauge surgical steel barbel, and explained the aftercare and healing process to me before taking me to the back room where she did piercings. The room was very sterile and clean. In one corner was a padded table, and in the other was a padded chair that looked like a dentist's chair. Desta arranged all her tools on a metal tray and swabbed my left eyebrow, the side I had decided to get pierced, with some orange gooey stuff that she said doctors use to steralize patients before they perform surgery. She clamped my eyebrow, which hurt. Then she counted to three and stuck the needle through. I was closing my eyes the whole time and barely felt it. It only hurt for about a split second, and it felt like gett ing a really really intense flu shot. She put the jewelry in, unclamped my skin, cleaned the piercing up, and handed me a hand mirror so I could admire my new piercing. It was beautiful and not even red. I paid her the 60 dollars for the piercing, got a sheet with the aftercare on it, and went home.
My piercing did beautifully the first week. People said that it looked like I had had it forever since there was no swelling or redness. I washed it once in the morning and once at night with Provon soap, and did sea salt soaks with a shot glass on it twice a day. Near the end of the second week I noticed something strange while I was cleaning my piercing: the bar looked closer to the surface of my skin. I knew at once that my beautiful, beloved eyebrow piercing was migrating, and I had only had it for 2 weeks! So the next day, I took the barbel out before it pushed all the way through my skin because I didn't want a nasty scar. It was a bummer, but I was determind to have this piercing, no matter what.
I missed my eyebrow piercing alot. So much that I decided to try to get it pierced one more time, but on the other side and with a ring this time instead of a barbel, since I read on the internet that eyebrows pierced with barbels have a 90% chance of migrating out. About a week after I had to take my first eyebrow out, I went back to Adorn and explained the situation to Desta. She said that she would pierce my right eyebrow, but this time she would do it by hand so she could go deeper into the tissue, and also she would use a ring to cut down the chances of migration. So we did it all over again, and this time it hurt worse and took longer because she used her hands to do it instead of a clamp. When she was done, I had a ring in my right eyebrow that was too big for my face and stuck out. I was somewhat dissapointed but consoled myself in knowing that as soon as it healed up, I would put a shiny silver barbel in it and it would be pretty again.
Over the next few weeks, I had more problems with the ring than I had with the barbel. It was swollen and red and people often asked me if it was infected. It took a great deal longer to heal and was always in the way, I caught my clothes on it quite a few times. Not fun. I continued with my sea salt soaks and cleaning it with Provon. I think sea salt is very beneficial to a piercing. I have been told by numerous piercers that it helps increase oxygen flow and circulation to the surface of the piercing, which helps it heal faster.
Finally, after 3 agonizing months, it was finally healed up. I put my silver barbel in it and it looks great now. I would recomend this piercing for anyone, as long as you have patience and realize that you might have to experiment with this piercing a few times until your body adjusts to it. But in the end, its all worth it.