Oh man, where do I start? I first started looking for a new piercing after I got my lip pierced twice. I've always wanted to keep my piercings from being fairly "mainstream", so I thought a smiley (aka scrumper) would be perfect. I considered perhaps my tongue pierced as an alternative, but it didn't sound as interesting and 'out-there' as a scrumper did.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Virginia Studio Little Shop of Beauty Location Port Pirie, South Australia I discussed it with a few of my piercer friends first before approaching my fave piercer, Virginia, about it. They all told me to go for it, cause there weren't to many big dangers involved... everyone said it would look great.
Virginia was very helpful, and even gave me a discount... I got the piercing for $30 (plus jewellery) since she'd never done something like this before. I was a little nervous about it, but I trusted her. It was much better than the local tattoo parlour, who also had never done the piercing before but wanted a hundred bucks plus the price of jewellery to get it done.
So, I arranged to come back a week later. This would give enough time for Virginia to research the piercing (on bmezine of course!) and get some advice on it, plus make sure she had the right size tools. She contacted her trainers, and they gave her tips on the positioning and preferred gauge size. I wanted an 18, but a 16 had to do instead.
The week went by so slowly, but finally I lying on the piercing table, nervously holding the hand of one of my friends as Virginia prepared the tools. My friend Kenneth watched, bemused, as I held my top lip up for the piercer while she put the septum clamp in place. We had decided to start on an eyebrow bar at first, since it would take some getting used to the new metal in my mouth. Everything went in fine, no bleeding at all. There was a pinch when the clamp went on, and it was strange that I could feel the needle go straight through that tiny piece of skin. It seemed to linger there forever before it burst out the other side. My eyes watered a bit, but it didn't hurt very much at all. I think I could get almost anything done after this.
However, when I went to drop Kenneth home, one of the balls came loose and I had to hold the bar in and hurriedly drive back to Virginia's house. She screwed the ball back in and tightened them the best she could.
However, that night the ball fell out again, so I had to sleep on my side and hold my finger up near my gum as I slept to keep the bar from falling out.
Early the next morning, I went straight back to Virginia's and showed her. After some careful consideration, we decided to try a bcr instead. We had to use a 16g this time as well, it was actually a bcr used for a conch piercing. It was still fairly small though, so I agreed to give it a shot. It went in absolutely fine, it was the ball that was the problem. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt much at all, even when she finally got the ball clipped in after all the tugging and messing around to line up the dimples. I went happily on my way, and mum didn't notice the presence of my new piercing for almost a month.
It's a little hard to kiss anymore, or much like that. I tend to have to straighten up the ball as well, sometimes it gets noticably crooked. I get a lot of people coming up to me on the street to take a look at it. It was fun on the first day back at school, I got an unusual amount of attention from classmates... they all thought it was awesome. On the other hand, it's also useful to keep guys away... plus it's good for work, cause lots of people want to know about it and make conversation just so they can find out how it's attatched, where I got it done, how much it cost and if it hurt or not.
I'm surprised the piercing lasted this long after all the trauma it was put through. It didn't really effect my eating habits too much. I found I had to eat most stuff with a fork, or chop it up.
Now, three months down the track, I can feel my precious smiley is beginning to work it's way out, just as I was warned when it first went in. I have to polish the bcr every day, and it's been worth it. I love the attention when people double take if you smile at them. I'm definitely considering getting this piercing done again, I've loved every minute of it.