I thought about getting my Madonna piercing for a ridiculous amount of time before I actually went ahead with it. A facial piercing other than the nostril was a big decision for me, and one of the factors that allowed me to go ahead with a clear conscience eventually was that I am a student, and don't need to face the 'real world' and its dress codes and prejudices for another 18 months or so.
At A Glance Author Titanium Angel Contact Titanium Angel@bme.anon IAM titanium_angel When Three months ago Artist Julie Studio Cold Steel Location London, UK Why a Madonna? Well, it is one of three lip piercings I like the look of, the others being a labret and a vertical labret. I ruled out the vertical labret because I wasn't totally convinced about the ball between my lips. As for the normal labret, although it is beautiful and fairly socially acceptable, on balance, I have come across more tales of people having problems with labrets in terms of gum erosion and so forth, than for upper lip piercings, and that is something I am very keen to avoid. Madonnas are fairly rare piercings, which is a two edged sword. While on the one hand, I don't feel quite so much like I am just going along with trends and taking the easy path in terms of facial piercing, on the other hand, people are less used to seeing Madonnas, which means that I might have to potentially put up with more people staring and commenting.
It took a long time to get to the piercing. My first chance was at a barbecue in London organised by a member of IAM in the summer of 2002, but I didn't get it then after hearing a rumour that the piercer was under the influence of certain illegal substances. In any case, I was slightly uneasy with the idea of getting a precision oral piercing performed by a trainee who had never pierced me before. Then autumn came. Cold season. I figured that having a streaming nose and a fresh Madonna wouldn't be at all pleasant, so I waited out the winter, and finally got the piercing performed in early April 2003. All that time I was weighing up the pros and cons, whether the chances of gum erosion were too great, and whether I had the nerve to face the world with a piece of jewellery in my upper lip. It almost became a challenge to me.
On the day of the piercing, I had my mind made up. I would either get a second rook piercing if the first was sufficiently healed (a cowardly route to go, but a nice safety net) or I would get my long-awaited Madonna. I went to Cold Steel, and talked to Julie, my regular piercer. She looked at the rook and declared it not quite ready to have the second one added yet, and so I took a deep breath and asked for a Madonna. She bounced with glee, since I have been talking to her about my quandary for ages, and I made an appointment to come back an hour later, so I could go and grab a sandwich. My tongue piercing had caused considerable problems with eating for the first day or so, and I was determined to stuff my face before getting the Madonna, in case all oral piercings had the same effect!
When I returned, I filled out the standard release form – asking about medical conditions and allergies, and whether you have eaten in the last 4 hours, slept well and not consumed alcohol or drugs in the preceding 24 hours, and paid for the piercing. I got a slight discount, so I paid £25 (I think its usually £30 including jewellery). I was given my aftercare sheet and was instructed not to lose it, as it doubled as a voucher for a free jewellery downsize when the piercing was healed (about 6-8 weeks later theoretically, though it may be longer - it was in my case). Then I sat on the funky metal sofa, and waited for Julie to get everything ready.
For the first time since my tongue piercing back in August 2000, I took someone into the room with me: my housemate would be taking photos (and I would also prove to him that piercing was harmless and thus he should get his tongue pierced). Julie okayed this, as long as he didn't use a flash. Alas, this made the photos come out strangely, and hence they aren't in this experience! I sat up on the bench, and swilled my mouth out with mouthwash, and then Julie cleaned the outside of my lip. We both agreed the piercing should be on the left hand side since my right nostril is pierced, and I didn't want to look too lop-sided! She then marked a dot where she thought the piercing would be most comfortable: About one-third of the way up the lip and about two-thirds of the way from the edge of my philtrum to the crease where I smile (pretty much level with the medial edge of my canine tooth). A picture of the piercing can be found here if that makes visualising the placement easier. I okayed it, though it was extremely difficult to visualise the difference between a tiny dot and the alarmingly large looking initial jewellery that would sit there. Then I laid back and Julie got down to business.
She prepared the clamps, chatting merrily and telling me what to expect. Then she got me to tilt my head to the right, and to close my eyes. The clamps went on (at which point I had an overwhelming desire to laugh for some reason, which I managed to overcome), and I allowed my eyes to flicker open, at which point I saw the needle hovering over my face. I didn't think it was scary at all, the sight made me really happy in fact. Julie lined the needle up, I took in a deep breath, and as I exhaled, she pierced. Oh, what a tiny prick of a piercing. After my years of cartilage piercing, this was such a breeze! As Julie removed the needle and inserted the jewellery, a single tear rolled from my right eye, just as she said it would.
When the jewellery was in, I took in the strangeness of feeling something hard in my mouth, and then sat up and looked in the mirror... and my first thought was "oh my god, what have I done?" The jewellery looked immense, and though Julie said it really suited me, and my housemate said it looked alright (which is as much of a complement as I could expect), I was just shocked. But Julie had always said it's a real culture-shock when you first see the big initial jewellery, with its extra length to allow for swelling sticking out of your top lip. My initial jewellery was a 9mm long titanium labret stud. This is slightly shorter than standard, but I was allowed it on the proviso that I went straight back to Cold Steel if there were any problems and it proved too short to deal with the swelling... one of the perks of being a regular, I guess!
Julie talked me through aftercare – cleaning the outside in the morning and evening with either salt water or whatever works for my ear piercings (I tend to use Savlon wound wash), and swilling with mouthwash after eating, and drinking anything other than water. If I were a smoker, I would also have to do the same after smoking. I started off with a bottle of Tech2000, but that isn't immensely good value for money nor easy to get hold of, so when that ran out, I used Dentyl pH, another alcohol-free mouthwash, instead. I followed the cleaning instructions rigorously for the first week or so, but after that I relaxed this regime somewhat – using the mouthwash regularly, but if I was not in a position to rinse immediately (even a tiny amount of mouthwash simply can't be spat subtly into a tissue in polite company, take it from someone who's tried!) I would swill my mouth with clean water, and then use mouthwash as soon as I could get access to a sink for dignified mouthwash d isposal. I suffered no adverse effects as a result of relaxing this regime, largely because I know the inside of the mouth heals quickly, though I would not necessarily advise others to do the same, and would certainly stress that you should be very rigorous about cleaning in the first week or so.
In terms of the aftermath, the piercing stung for about an hour after it was done. I managed to remedy this a bit by drinking cold water, and swilling it around my mouth. I was also paranoid that it was bleeding, but it wasn't. Eating wasn't a problem, though I tried to chew more on the opposite side of my mouth to start with. Smiling was the biggest problem for me... If I didn't think about what I was doing, when I tried to relax my mouth after smiling, the disc of the labret stud would catch on a ridge in my maxilla, and it would hurt quite a bit. That spot got quite sore, but I applied anbesol ointment to it, and that sorted it out.
Swelling kicked in the night after the piercing was performed. It was the kind of swelling that was only really noticeable to me, and it made it feel difficult to annunciate certain sounds (especially 'p' sounds) but it was nowhere near as bad as the speech impediment a tongue piercing gives you! I took ibuprofen to minimise the swelling in the first few days – for some reason ice didn't really do much in my case.
After about 3 days, the swelling receded, and the piercing was just a bit red and slightly raised in the immediate area. The excess length on the bar started to show again. At this point, it started to crust up quite a lot – for 2 or 3 days, there was quite a lot of crusties (naturally, this happened when I was at Whitby Gothic Weekend and was desperate to look gorgeous in the sea of beautiful Goths), then this lessened somewhat. I did my best not to overclean it, striking a balance between keeping the piercing relatively crustie free and not disturbing the healing skin too much, or being too harsh (I suffer from slightly dry skin anyway). I also noted that the more I cleaned it, the more crusties formed – it seemed that the action of cleaning made the piercing emit a little lymph. In the end, I settled on cleaning off the crusties with water in the shower in the morning, and then using savlon wound wash on a q-tip in the evening. As for the dry skin, I ended up either just coping with it, or applying a tiny bit of fragrance-free moisturiser to my lip with a q-tip being careful not to get it in the piercing.
So, how would I sum up my Madonna? On the basis of the first couple of monthsm I'd say its not too painful, quick to heal initially at least, and a cute, feminine piercing, but, unfortunately, not suited to everyone. In the first couple of days after the piercing, I really didn't like my madonna. Then I was declaring that I didn't like it, I should have placed it 2mm further to the left, it made me feel ugly, and that I was going to take it out. My rational side convinced me to wait a few weeks and see how things panned out, and sure enough, after I got used to the piercing, after people who had originally tried to dissuade me saw pictures and said it looked "not too bad", and (I'm not sure how fundamental this is) after I had confessed about the new piercing to my mother and wasn't disowned, I felt more comfortable with it, although still eager to get my hands on the shorter jewellery and tiny jewelled balls you can wear in it once the piercing is totally healed. After a month, my feelings towards the piercing were somewhat lukewarm. It was okay, but I wasn't in love with it. At 2 months or so, I changed the ball to a plain steel 4mm ball, and it looked a little better.
However, I ran into some real troubles with scarring on the inner surface. I am not sure how it came about, possibly some food got caught, or there was a little too much knocking of the piercing when I cleaned my teeth, but a small lump formed on the inner surface of my lip to one side of the piercing. I knew a friend had experienced the same problem as me with her labret, and that she had called Cold Steel to ask for their advice, so I asked her what they said, and followed that – which was, in the first instance, gentle buffing of the lump with a clean toothbrush, and making sure the jewellery was plaque free. I wouldn't usually advise that you just ask a friend what to do – it is always preferable to ask a piercer. This was a special case because I had seen the problem my friend had was the same as mine, and knew she had asked the same reputable piercers as I go to. A few weeks later, the lump seemed to be improving, but then I caught a cold. The constant nose-blowin g etc. seemed to cause so much irritation that the lump inflamed much more, and was much more of a problem.
I weighed up the situation: would this happen every time I got a cold, especially if it took a long time to calm down after flaring up? Was this something I was prepared to put up with in the long term? Ultimately, I decided it wasn't. I still had certain misgivings about the placement suiting me, and so I decided to retire the piercing. This was almost 4 months to the day after the piercing was performed. I don't expect it will scar too much; the hole was well-healed on the outside, and very small in size. Letting the piercing heal up wasn't too upsetting a decision to make; given my awareness of the social response to relatively unusual facial piercings, I would never allow myself to get too attached to the Madonna, and was always reconciled to retiring it being a question of when, not if. I'm glad I got the piercing, for the experience if nothing else, and I am glad I gave it a fair chance rather than impulsively taking it out almost straight away, but ultimately i t did not give me as much pleasure as many of my other piercings have, and I think didn't suit me as well as it might have. I have no plans to re-pierce it in the future.
