In the summer of 2003, my sister, my mother and I took a trip to England to visit some relatives. We got on the plane on my fifteenth birthday and I was very excited to finally have permission to get a piercing. (My mother wouldn't even let me have my ears done until I was fifteen because that's when her mother let her get it done.) Lame eh?
At A Glance Author Mz. Kittie Contact Mz. Kittie@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Cute British Guy Studio Dont Remember Location Manchester, England We where shopping one day when a saw a little spa sort of place with a tattoo and piercing studio below it. Naturally I wanted to check it out. After about an hour of begging, my mother finally paid so that I could get my ears done. I didn't find it painful cause I'm normally quite accident-prone (Broken bones hurt a lot more.:p). Of course my little sister then had to whine because she too wanted a piercing. My mother told her no for her ears, but strangely let her get her navel pierced. I didn't think that was very fair, and I always had wanted to get my eyebrow done, so again I convinced my mother to let me get that done as well. Knowing I would have got it done anyway when I got home, she signed the papers.
I went into the assigned room and inside was a very cute British guy with all visible skin other then his hands and face tattooed. I figured he looked like he was good at what he was doing so I sat down. He prepared my eyebrow with sanitizer and picked up the clamps. I didn't like them AT ALL! For the first five minutes he would tighten the clamps pinching me and then release them saying I had elastic skin. Finally when he had his spot and my eyebrow was totally tender, he picked up the needle. Pulling it out of its protective packaging, he accidentally dropped it on the floor, and then had to leave the room to go get another.
I sat wincing at myself in the mirror as I watched my eyebrow slowly change color from red to pasty white in the clamp. Now I'm no expert but after having other things pierced since then I realize the clamp was a LOT tighter then it needed to be. Which could explain the pain I was feeling?
Finally he returned with a new needle and he pulled it out of the package, handing it to me to hold for a second. This being my first clamp piercing I was kind of preoccupied by the big plier-like things hanging painfully off my eyebrow, and I too dropped the needle on the ground. Thankfully he had brought extras with him this time and he opened a new one carefully pushing it through my eyebrow. I have to say, after having the clamp on for so long I was thankful for the numb feeling I had for the rest of the process. Now here is where I started to regret even the thought of getting it done...
After he had put the ring in, and taken the clamp off, it continued to bleed. I looked into the mirror and was worried to see a small stream of blood rolling down my face and landing on my new shirt. He treated it with some gauze and sanitizer and after about five minutes it stopped bleeding and I began to feel better. He apologized for all the problems and explained that he mostly did tattoos. I was a little nervous thinking about what could have happened, but I forgot quickly just being happy to have it done. It was still numb, and I couldn't get mad at someone so cute anyway. Before I left I had him sign the front of my shirt as a souvenir for my first (and last) British piercing. :P
Funniest thing ever: seeing the face on my mom when I walked back up stairs with blood on my shirt and a bit of blood still on my eyebrow.
All and all it wasn't so bad. For the full year and a half it hasn't been infected once, it healed very quickly and I loved it. It was totally worth all the drama. I'm just sad to say that now, after a year and a half it has just about grown out and I haven't been able to keep a ring in it for the past few month's afraid that the smallest snag will rip it right out. I have fourteen other piercing and 10 of them I did on my own without any problems, so I'm not worried about getting it redone.
The only advice I can really give about eyebrow piercing are don't get it done by someone who doesn't KNOW how to do it. Get it professionally done. It's worth the cost, a lot quicker, and a lot less painful. Wouldn't want to end up blind if it gets really badly infected. :P And don't sleep on it after you get it done either (I rolled over and couldn't open my eye for an hour).