A week before my 18th Birthday I decided that I wanted a piercing to commemorate the day of me turning "legal," and another simple hole in my ear was just not going to do it. After checking out tons of piercings, I had settled on getting my tongue done, and I asked my parents what they thought about it and in a rather blunt way they told me if I had it done they would kick me out of the house. For fear of living in a cardboard box on some street corner, I decided to go to my next choice -- an eyebrow piercing.
At A Glance Author Amber Contact Amber@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Jenny Studio The Tattoo Machine Location Tacoma, Washington After getting the okay from my parents and checking out the background on those type of piercings, the day before my birthday, I went down to "The Tattoo Machine" and checked out if it was clean and all and the owner assured me that I would be in the best of hands with Jenny, the girl that would be piercing me the next day. I thanked him and went on my way, though I still felt pretty dang nervous about the whole ordeal since I've only ever had a couple of lobe and cartilage piercings in my entire life...I guess you could call me a "piercing virgin" of sorts.
August 26th rolled around faster than I thought it would and before I knew it, I was walking inside the place and showing Jenny my ID. After she verified I was 18 and wished my a Happy Birthday, she gave me this clipboard with a piece of paper that I had to fill out. I sat on the comfy couch in the corner of the room and answered all the routine questions and about five minutes later Jenny reappeared and told me to follow her if I was ready. By this time there were major butterflies in my stomach, but I was bound and determined to go through with it, so I followed her into a room in the front of the place and sat on a blue padded table of sorts. Jenny asked me what type of piercing I wanted and I told her an eyebrow piercing and she asked me if I wanted a barbell or a ring, and at first I had wanted a ring but then I thought about my new puppy at home and she would probably rip out that ring faster than anything, so in the end I chose a barbell.
After a few minutes of talking about aftercare and whatnot, Jenny pulled over a little tray that had the packaged needle and forceps and the little barbell on it. She put on some rubber gloves and opened the package, explaining what would be happening and she told me that if I could deal with the pain of the forceps that I would be fine. So after all that, she cleaned my eyebrow and dotted it in three different places so I could choose the positioning I wanted and after I did, she cleaned off the other two sets of dots and put the forceps on. I'm not going to lie to you, the forceps hurt, but not as much as you would imagine and with me being a chicken, that should mean something. It was like a dull pain that you could only deal with for a short amount of time until it got really irritating. She also told me to take deep breaths in and out because it really helps with the pain and surprisingly, she was right! On the third of fourth exhale, she stuck the needle through. I wont say it's painless because it really isn't, but it's a tolerable pain and if you want the piercing bad enough, your mind will tell you that it really doesn't hurt at all because that's what happened with me. Jenny told me the worst was over and she grabbed the barbell and put it in and that's when I kind of freaked out. I looked over at the little tray thing and there were little cotton swabs full of blood that she was wiping off. I had read tons of eyebrow piercings stories on here and I had never heard of anyone bleeding as much as I did...there had to be at least 4 cotton swabs with blood on them and I felt a little bit lightheaded, but convinced myself that I was just freaking out too much, besides the piercing was already done, right? Wrong.
Jenny stepped back and examined her handy work and made a little face and I could immediately tell that something was wrong. I asked "what?" and she only laughed a bit and handed me the mirror. I was afraid to look in it for a second and she said, "I think the barbell is a bit too big, don't you?" Then I looked at my reflection and saw that the 16 g 3/8 barbell she had put in was indeed way too big for my eyebrow so she went back over to the case and got out a 5/16 one and told me that if my eyebrow swelled bigger than this barbell to just come back in and we'll put a bigger one in it. I nodded and she changed the jewelry which hurt a bit more than I expected because she had removed the forceps and the blood had returned to my eyebrow causing feeling there. Once the new jewelry was in, Jenny handed me the mirror once more and I immediately fell in love with the piercing and felt proud of myself for going through with it. I hopped off the table and she went over the aftercare instructions once more with me and she gave me a bottle of cleaning solution as a gift for my 18th Birthday and I was on my way...well, after I went to Fred Meyer and got some ice and non-iodized sea salt.
It's been 3 days since I got it done and I love it! There is minimal swelling and it doesn't hurt at all unless I'm cleaning it and afterwards it's a little sore, but that's expected. For anyone who is thinking about getting a piercing but doesn't want to be so outrageous, I totally recommend an eyebrow piercing. It's simple and sexy at the same time and it really gets you a lot of attention!