I had been wanting to get some sort of facial piercing for a few months, I was debating between getting my eyebrow, nose or lip pierced. At the time I wasn't able to afford to go to a piercing studio so I thought to myself, I'll just do this myself, how hard could this be? Ultimately I decided to go with a center lip/labret piercing because it would be the easiest. I had done all my previous piercings myself, but only in my ears. I had never had a piercing anywhere else. So this was almost like a first time, all over again I was a bit nervous. I had friends that had pierced themselves and they seemed to turn out fairly reasonable. I wasn't sure exactly what to use, I had had multiple unpleasant experiences with safety pins before so those were out of the question(I wound up with a beautiful infection in both my ear lobes). I figured I would just use the biggest sewing needle I could find or a thumb tack, both of which are just as bad if not worse than safety pins. The really amazing thing was I had somehow c ome across a a brand new hollow needle that looked to be in the realm of around 14 gauge in a drawer in my house. I couldn't believe it, it was so exciting! I don't even know how or why it was in there, but I was going to pierce myself with it and I was determined. So on a cold Saturday in January, I decided to have a go at it.
At A Glance Author oranges Contact terminal_preppy17@hotmail.com When Six months ago Artist myself Studio bedroom Location minnesota There I was, sitting in my bedroom with the needle, a marker (which by the way, wasn't permanent) to mark the spot on my lip, ice to numb the area, a mirror, and a sterile 14g ring that I had boiled in water. After marking the spot with the marker and getting it just right, I proceeded to numb it with ice. Well, the ice melted when I touched it to my skin, it also washed away the non-permanent marker. I was just anxious to get it done, so even though the mark was all smeared all over my lower lip, I figured I could just "eyeball" it. Something told me that was not very sensible, but I ignored it.
I pushed the needle through my lip. I went through much easier then I thought and it wasn't as painful as I had expected either. With the needle still dangling through my lip I looked at myself in the mirror and watched the blood drip out all over my chin and neck. It felt very strange, not even unpleasant strange, just very bizarre to have this hollow thing going through my lip. I pulled the needle out and was ready to insert the 14g ring, but I waited a bit long and the ring was surprisingly painful to push all the way through. I abandoned that idea and quickly thinking I grabbed an ordinary earring with a post on it and pushed it through the hole in an effort to prevent it from closing. Immediately afterwards I noticed it was very slightly off-center. Not enough to be an issue for me though. I put the back on it and left it there for about a day and a half. Might I add that it was horribly swollen for that time also. The back of the earring kept hitting my teeth and it was very annoying. I decided to put a 16g ring through instead and it went in easily. It was a bit tight fitting around my lip once I snapped the ball in place and I was worried that I pierced it too low, but a few days later the swelling went down and it fit just right. I later bought a 14g retainer for it and then after wearing that for about 2 days I could fit the ring I originally picked out. I was proud of it, it looked nice.
My boyfriend had no idea that I was serious about piercing it myself and when he saw it for the first time, he joked that I was insane. So did my family and a few friends. Most of them were never really too fond of it, but I was happy with it and I didn't care what other people thought. I had gotten very used to it being in, being the easily amused person that I am I found it great deals of fun to play with. Funny thing was, about 4 months later I was at my boyfriends house once again house where I took the ring out and it somehow "magically vanished". The hole long since closed up only leaving behind a tiny bump on the inside of my lip and a small scar on the outside. I was bummed out at first but realized all good things come to an end eventually. Next time (which I'm positive there will be!) will be at a piercing studio. As fun and addicting as it is, it pays to know what you're doing when it comes to mutilating yourself. Well that's it folks. Take care.