Early in my freshman year of college, about December, I decided I was ready for another piercing, and seeing as how I was returning to school far away from my parents, I devised a plan to get the piercing done, spend the night at a friend's house, and drive back to school the next morning, having told my parents I was leaving the day before. To get ideas I looked through the piercing database on BME, as always trying to find something more underground. I ended up in the lip piercing section on the BME site, trying to get ideas of what kinds of lip piercings there are. I stumbled upon a snakebite version of the vertical lip piercing, and absolutely fell in love. I had already had my tongue pierced twice, and at that point my ears were stretched to 3/4", so I was no stranger to piercings. Many of my friends were also into tattoos and piercings, so the question was not "Should I get my lip pierced?" but rather, "How should I get my lip pierced?". As soon as I found the vertical snakebite I knew it was for me.
At A Glance Author agnieszka Contact agnieszka@bme.anon When Two years ago Artist Nate S. Studio Friend's house Location Orange County I had only been pierced through friends up until this point, I was fortunate to know a couple people with 'natural talent', though I now heavily discourage others from 'ghetto piercings', as I like to call them. To this day I have never been pierced in a shop, but most likely the next time I decide to have someone stick a needle through me I will seek a professional. However, as I said, I knew someone and it was a good friend rather than a friend of a friend. My friend Nate was very careful and sterile, and had pierced a few people I knew, so I trusted him completely. For lack of a better description, he simply gave off that aura like piercing was second nature. He was intelligent, calm, and confidant in his abilities, so I approached him and asked him to perform this piercing for me, showing him the picture I had found on BME. Though he had never before done this type of lip piercing, we were both all for it so we scheduled a date before I'd have to return to Santa Cruz for school, 450 miles away.
The piercing was performed at our friend Evan's house, and as the needles were boiling Nate positioned the marks on my lip for where he'd poke them through. Previous to that moment I had not even thought about the pain aspect, as getting my tongue pierced hadn't hurt at all, I could just feel the needle go through and that was it. This was totally different however: I hadn't considered how thick the skin on the top of the lip is. The nervousness always begins as soon as I am sure this is going to happen, at the point where the preparation begins and there is no going back [without humiliation]. My heart was beating quickly, two thirds excitement and one third apprehension, and I waited patiently on the chair in the kitchen. As soon as everything was ready it began, and using a door hinge for a clamp [it actually worked uncannily well], Nate pushed the needle through my lip from the bottom out the top, and the extra effort to get it through the top could be seen both in Nate's face and the momentary stop of the needle, like catching a nail on fabric. With searing pain and a whimper from myself, the needle popped through the top and Nate quickly inserted and secured the jewlery, a 16g barbell. I took a look in the mirror, and despite that having been the worst pain I ever felt in my life, it was love at first sight and I hurried back into the kitchen to do the other. The second hurt just as much if not more, due to the other side already being tender, but the end result could not have been better. One side was slightly askew but this could only be noticed with extreme scrutiny, and at a glance they looked perfectly even, and Nate and I seemed to be the only ones who could see the minor imperfection.
It was absolutely beautiful, but when my lip swelled I discovered that the jewlery I had chosen was too short for this aftercare period. Hoping the swelling would go down quickly, I stalled on finding other jewlery, knowing the length was adequate if only there was no swelling. However, due to the tightness, my lip refused to heal and remained swollen until I bought new jewlery. I waited way too long for this, and I encourage anyone getting a piercing in an area that swells, make sure your jewlery is adequate! And if you find out to your dismay that it is not, change it immediately! If I had more sense and had changed the jewlery earlier, it would have been much more healed by the time summer came around and offered more alternatives as far as taking it out for work. After I put in better jewlery it healed beautifully, making my small lips look fuller and adding an elfish quality to my face.
That piercing was the love of my life until I was forced to take it out when hunting for an office job that summer [in additon to the fact that my mother couldn't look me in the face]. I was hoping to simply find retainers, but I knew little of them and the women at the front desk of the local piercing shop looked at me like I was crazy when I asked about retainers, claiming there was no such thing [she will forever be on my hate list now]. I tearfully removed the jewlery and vowed in my heart to get it redone, fully aware of the pain involved. To this day I await the moment in my life when I relive the pain and make the beauty a reality once again.