At A Glance
Author	jonasje
Contact	jonasje@bme.anon
When	Two years ago

Eyebrow piercing and shaving at 14

My family is into piercings, and I like them myself, but there was no way I'd be allowed an eyebrowpiercing at the age of 14. I mean I even didn't ask, I knew the answer already. I had asked about nose and earcartiladge before, and the answer is always : yes, later. Or sometimes : no, maybe when you're still crazy enough at he age of 21.

So what happened 2 years ago when I was 14 was quite funny. There was this theatre competition (I'd never heard of it) of experimental and new theatre and performances. Not just normal plays, but crazy things, you just don't know where to look and they call it art. Anyway, there was this director from Germany who wanted to make a new piece and I wanted to win the competition. I can already tell you he participated, he got some attention, but he didn't win at all.

There was did ad in a local newspaper asking for boys with some stage-experience and "willing to appear bald and willing to study hard". They were looking for 14 to 16 year olds. There was a phone number and a faxnumber. I didn't see the thing, but my friend did and he called. They explained that they were looking for about 10 boys (they already had selected girls before) for this performance they were organising 2 months later. Because it was going to be performed a number of times, and because under the age of 16 you can't legally work here , and certainly not late, they needed 10. Each evening there would be 3 on stage. My friend couldn't get more info because they wanted to speak to his parents, and they were kinda agianst it (well, it would have been fun if he'd been there with me, but he has this strict parents).

So he told me, and I phoned too, and I had my father come to the phone. He didn't really like the idea, but he agreed to meet the theatre people. We went there on a friday evening after school. Its wasn't too far, but we had to cross the border. Too make a long story short, they wanted boys of 12 to 14, but they couldn't find any so they tried with 14 to 16, who could learn by heart about 15 pages of text in a few days time, and then speak them on a stage while being filmed, and the images where transmitted on a lot of screens in the theatrebuilding. Also on stage there were some older actors. Most of the people were dressed in white clothes, and a lot of the texts were supposed to be greek poetry, I couldn't understand a word of it.

I thought it would be fun to try and get some more stage experience (I'd been acting in some school and other plays before). So I got some white clothes made, and I started studying. I wished I'd never had accepted, because these texts were just impossible to learn by heart. I mean if you don't understand half of the words there is no way you can get it all in. But then my father stepped in again, and he gave me this speech about perseveration, and so on. With his help, a lot of time (every day for weeks) I managed to get the text in my head.

Every weekend we went back to this run down theatre to practice with the adults. It was good to see that they had problems too. The whole thing was just weird, and the more I practized, the less I understood.

Now you're all waiting for the piercing part of this experience, and here it comes. The director then got us to see a guy who did the make up and most of the clothes. He explained that we had to shave our heads (I'd already forgot this was in the initial ad) and he said that the adults and we had to dress "in pairs", so in the same type of clothes with the same accessories. I worked mainly with Daniel, a fun guy, and one of the few who really knew his lines. They then said that we both needed "a few piercings". Now they said they had talked to it when my father saw them, but he didn't recall that, and opposed the idea. He said they didn't have the right, and they seemed to forget they had kids as actors, not just adults. Most of the other parents had more or less the same reaction. The director then told us how important it was to have a space age, alien and innocent look, a long story that was hardly convincing. He then proposed "just 1 piercing" for each. Most of the kids found that to be a good compromise, but some parents still wouldn't have it. They then asked for a sign of goodwill, and it was then that my father took me apart and asked if I'd agree to get a facial piercing (bridge, labret, nose, eyebrow, ...) just for the duration of the project. He'd agree if he'd be allowed to organize it himself. I didn't expect this at all, and didn't know what to answer. He then said to go for the "easiest one", the eyebrow. I had imagined myself with an eyebrowpiercing before, but I had dismissed it as just a dream.

Of the 10 boys we started with, only 6 were left by then, and of these 6 there were 3 who agreed to get a facial piercing : one nose ring and 2 eyebrows. There had been some tension about his, and also because still nobody had an idea where the whole project was going. And we had to be ready about 3 weeks later.

So then the day came my father and this guy from the make up picked me up after school to go to a piercingshop. It wasn't the one I knew in town, but another one, quite far. The place looked clean and big, but some of the pics around of all kinds of piercings were really gross. The guy who was going to pierce me didn't smile and hardly talked. He mad almost no piercings or tattoos himself, and he wasn't really friendly. My father had told me he was good, and with him at my side I didn't panic. Not that I'm easily afraid, but this was going to be my first non-earpiercing.

They first cleaned the eyebrow with some clear fluid, and then dried it with some cloth, and put on a point with a marker. They put on my right eyebrow. They placed a point, and then discussed it. They said it was not deep enough, or to lateral, and they started again. After about 5 tries there were 2 sets of points left, just under a cm apart. I then had to choose which points, the normal one or the more lateral ones. I said "both". The piercer just nodded, and replied "OK, both". But my father stepped in and insisted I'd choose, and he preferred the medial ones. He didn't look too happy. I had imagined this as a fun procedure, but there was this tension, as if no one present really wanted to get it done. Apparently I didn't look too happy myself. So the piercer desinfected with some brown stuff, and applied clamps. Thet were quite small, and pinched a bit, but it wasn't painfull. He then got a needle out of this sterile package. It was at that moment that my father said "OK, both". Now I know my father tries hard to be 10 years younger then he is, and tries to be cool and so on, but this I absolutely didn't expect. I didn't get why he changed his mind, and I didn't know if 2 was better for me then 1. I just smiled a bit, and said "OK". The piercer then looked at the clamp but didn't change it. He then told me ; "ready at 3" and he started counting? He had hardly explained how and what he was going to do, so I got quite nervous. I looked at my dad, and he looked back, saying I'd be OK. But the piercer didn't wait and at 3 he pushed the needle in. I did feel it, it was even quite sharp, but as soon as the needle was through it felt OK. The piercer then placed a ring in it, and again I did feel it a bit. He didn't give me a mirror, and he didn't wait, he just put on the clamps again, slightly more to the right, going around the existing ring then. This was not really painful, and then he got another needle and said "on 3", and this time it was even quicker. But then the piercer realized he didn't have a second r "\Ãw"ë ing close by, so he left the needle in and told me to wait; He took of his gloves and went to a second room. I felt strange with this needle sticking out. I could see it in front of my eye. There was no blood. AFter a minute or so he came back with a ring in a small packaged, sterile, but it was slightly smaller then the first one. Het put it in, and told me to get up. He then started to explain how to take care of them. My father said he knew all of that, but the piercer still explained the whole story. I listened carefully, and for a moment I already forgot I had the piercing in. I looked back at the mirror and I really liked the result. It looked quite wild in fact. I asked my father if he liked it, and he said it was perfect. He was really very positive about it all. The make up guy stayed in the shop to pay, and to get an appointment for other people, I suppose the other 2 boys.

When I came home I felt so proud. I hadn't really done any research about eyebrowpiercings, it all went so fast. But I was happy my father got one of his crazy ideas just at the right time. He explained afterwards what can go wrong (luckily I didn't knop that earlier), and he also explained that at school I'd be the only one with an eyebrow piercing, because normally they don't place these before the age of 16. I knew that, but I was more worried about reactions at school. I mean I had a lot of friends, but I knew people were going to envy me, and probably the teachers wouldn't like it.

The taking care of it was not too difficult. There were some crusties, but I never saw any blood. It hurt a bit when I tried to tun the rings, but only the first 3 days. My fathe rinspected the rings every day, and re-explained every day how to take care of them, as if I'd already forgotten it. He also had to go and see the head teacher at school, and the discussion (I wasn't there) apparently didn't go that well. But I was allowed to keep it.

The next weekend I went back to the theatre. The wholen place was different know, because they had constructed some kind of decoration of the stage. All white ofcourse. The director was in a good mood, and announced that 1 of the adults and one of the boys had dropped out. The girls group on the other hand was still quite big. We started rehearsing the whole piece, and I now understood more or less what the idea was. The texts were still impossible, but I had trained enough and I managed to speak them correctly. We did work most of saturday. The make up guy told us that it would be best to get shaved on sunday, which would be about 10 days before the first real performance.

With all this rehearsing, and the whole piercing story, I had again forgot the shaving. I had had short hair before, but never completely shaved my head. It was quite "gabber" stylish, and I wasn't into that. I also wouldn't know how to do it. My father left it to the make up guy. He got the 4 ramining boys, of which 3 with a piercing in this theatre kitchen. He didn't have a real hairdressing chair there, but something that looked like it, but didn't turn around. I went second. He used clippers, and that's really fast. He then used a shaving knife (the Wilkinson type things) to get of the last millimeters. It felt really strange, much more "nude" then I had imagined. There were a few dots that did bleed a little. He applied some lotion, but that didn't make the strange feeling go away. He then continued on some remaining short hairs close to the ears. He then said "and now the eyebrows". I hadn't realized he wanted to do that, and he didn't do it on the other boy. I wasn't sure if I wanted that, but my father wasn't there, and I didn't really refuse. He just went ahead, and shaved them of completely. Both of them, not just lines in them, or thinning them, no completely off. It was easy on one side, but close to the piercings he had to do it almost hair by hair. It didn't hurt.

The 3rd boy refused that, but the rest of us started loughing at eachother and making funny facial expressions. We hardly recognised ourselves. When my father came to pick me up he noticed immediately, he then started to say things like "what do they think ...", but he quickly changed tone and started joking also. He was in a good mood, and so was I. He probably new already what was going to happen.

What a horrible feeling ! I'm talking shaved eyebrows here : every little drop of sweat on your forehead gets into your eyes, and when taking a shower all soap finds its way there where it shouldn't go. And thats a lot more annoying then you think. At school the next day I had to do the whole story a dozen times, and everybody wanted to feel my head. The teachers were even less pleased then when I showed up with the pierced eyebrow. Before noon I was in the headteachers office. I just explained what happened and he asked me all about the artproject. He said I shouldn't be "tortured" for the sake of art, and that directors of theatre pieces shoulnd't disrupt schoollife. He phoned my father again, who managed to calm down the headteacher. He didn't have much choice, because I couldb't egt the hair back in a minute. And sending me home for a few weeks till it started to grow back wasn't a good alternative. So after the lecture I got back to my friends.

The next week wasn't easy; I had to shave it again, and the skin got irritated a bit. Some guys kept making fun of me. But I concentrated on the play. The final rehearsal did go really well. The only problems we had were technical, all the actors did just fine. We were proud and we hoped some public would understand this strange piece.

There were normally 3 boys on stage, at the same time, with the same text. But we were only 4, and normally there should be one day of rest between each performance. So the director made up this scheme of 1 boy on stage, and 2 girsl, and then every 4 days we'd change. Since there were only 9 performances, this would mean in theory max 3 times per person. But that was on paper, because in practice there were always 2 of us on stage, and at the end I had been in 7 of the 9 shows. Illegal, yes, but great fun. My father was happy with the result. He seemed ton understand where the whole play was going to, and he was clearly proud with my role. The public however didn't understand. They clapped, and after the performance they came to see us from close by, but they never cheered or gave an ovation. The few critics that came to see said it was "courageous" and "innovating", but didn't understand more of it then we did.

The director and my father became friends, and he did even forgive the make up artist. I never did. I mean I loved the looks of the shaved eyebrows, and I'm kinda proud I had it once, but I hated the feeling and I'll never do it again.

After the last show I the hair slowly came back, and so did the eyebrows (after 2 months). I kept the eyebrowpiercing much longer then planned. That's the lateral one, that I got stretched to 2.4 mm instead of 1.6 mm. I did it because the other one got slightly ton when I did take of a T-shirt. I took that one out for ever, and got a new barbell (no ring anymore) in the other one. The other kid with the eyebrowpiercing took it out immediately after the last show. The boy with the nosepiercing still has it. He did get into other art-projects, I didn't till now.

I hope you enjoyed my eyebrow story. If you're getting one : good luck !