The other night I was looking though the lip piercing galleries on the main BME site [I had been considering a Medusa for a while] and I stopped into the smiley piercing gallery and i was caught by surprise by this picture:
At A Glance Author kiana t. Contact kiana t.@bme.anon IAM kiana t. When It just happened Artist yours truly Studio T's Bathroom Location el paso, tx http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/05-lips/A60907/high/bmepb347539.jpg
It was the first really cute smiley I had seen before, and I liked the way it looked with a septum ring, which I already have.
Before I went to sleep that night I read some of the smiley experiences, which seem to be in large part home-done, and by the time I was dressed the next morning I decided that I was going to give myself a scrumper.
I called my boy Steve and asked him to drive me around looking for a place that would sell me a sharp before I had to go to work. Unfortunately all of the real piercing studios open at 12, the same time I go into work, so we had to go to a piercing shop inside the mall called Zero Gravity.
The guy said he couldn't sell me a needle so I bought an autoclaved 18g captive bead ring. I had originally wanted to pierce it at a larger gauge and put in a barbell, but since I couldn't get a hollow needle I was going to have to pierce with a sewing needle [yes, its a bad idea] and the largest size I had was roughly 18g.
I could have ordered a sharp online and waited for it to arrive, but I have found that in my experience waiting just makes me anxious and eventually leads me to over-think the piercing and talk myself out of it. So I have to do it spur-of the-moment or I can't do it at all. Especially since this was my first home piercing.
So we headed over to Steve's house with the jewelry.
Once we got there I read some more of the DIY stories to get a better idea of what to do while Steve cleaned up the bathroom and put some salt water to warm up for me.
We set up our supplies [anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, some Q-tips, a small cutting of cork, the sanitized needle, autoclaved jewelry, and a mug of warm salt water] and I washed my hands.
I pulled up my lip with one hand and tried to push the needle through with the other. I aimed for the very middle of my frenulum so that it would be visible when I smiled and still have a low chance of rejection. I said 'tried' because I pulled the needle back out of my mouth because I couldn't even feel it going in.
I had read in other experiences that piercing your smiley was painless, but I expected to at least feel the needle going in. I didn't.
I pulled the needle out to make sure it was sharp, because I thought it was just pushing against my skin instead of piercing it.
After inspecting the needle to make sure it wasn't dull I pulled up my lip again and reinserted the needle. Like the first time I still couldn't feel the needle going in and I didn't know it was piercing [from what I could see it looked like it was just pushing my skin] until I heard a faint pop.
I had read about the pop so I felt somewhat comforted and kept on pushing. After my second layer of skin had stretched for about a third of an inch I heard the second pop and the tip of the needle appeared on the other side of my frenulum.
I knew [from what I had read] that the second layer of skin stretches quite a bit, and I had planned to put a piece of cork on the other end to reduce the stress on that piece of skin, but I hadn't realized that both my hands would already be doing something so I didn't get to use it.
But like the other stories say, it was painless. It just felt like I was stretching my skin; I couldn't even feel the needle going in at all. It bled a little but I couldn't see it, I could taste it.
Then came the hard part: inserting the jewelry. I called my boy off the camera to try and help me get it in. The plan was that I would hold my lip up and one end of the needle while he tried to push the butt end of the needle through with the jewelry.
It was really awkward because that area isn't very large, so our fingers felt ridiculously large and clumsy.
He pushed the needle about halfway through [with the captive bead ring] but the ring slipped out and I was stuck with the needle only half-way through my frenulum. The thing about that piece of skin is that it is very stretchy, and we found out that if you aren't stretching it the exact same way its nearly impossible to find the other side of the hole again. Especially because you cant feel anything.
Steve-o got grossed out watching me fish for the hole and after I said some uncalled-for mean things to him he left me alone in the bathroom with a needle halfway in.
I pulled the needle out and decided to just let it heal and try again later [since it was painless anyway] but as I looked at all of my supplies I decided to try and find the hole with just the CBR. I had nothing to lose because at worst I'd let it heal, and if I succeeded I'd have a shiny piece of metal in my mouth to show for it.
I couldn't feel where the hole was, and I couldn't see the hole so I just ran the end of the ring in the general area until it slipped into the hole. It went through very easily, and I felt so much better.
I admired my new piercing for a while before I headed out to apologize to Steve. He accepted my apology and was proud of my hole-finding skills, so he agreed to help me put the bead into my CBR.
THIS WAS TROUBLE. I do not recommend putting a CBR into a fresh smiley unless you have very small and nimble fingers or a huge mouth.
Other stories had warned me about using CBRs [the bead is hard to put in and gets lost easily] so initially I was going to put in a curved barbell in, not a captive bead ring, but all the barbells at Zero Gravity would come up to around $25 bucks with autoclave and I figured for that much I could at least have it professionally done. That was a bad idea and if I was going to do it again I would have definitely gone with a barbell.
We had practiced putting the bead in beforehand and it seemed pretty simple but when it came to putting it onto the ring once it was in my mouth it was nothing short of impossible. we must have tried a hundred times within an hour. We tried in all sorts of positions and even with tweezers and at the end of it all I was on the verge of tears.
It was so deeply frustrating to have pierced myself for the first time and feel so complete with the new ring in place but not able to fasten it.
I considered a number of things from going to work without the bead on [the ring would have surely slipped out], to abandoning the piercing altogether. I was running late to work, and hadn't had any lunch so I was begging Steve to just clamp the ring shut with pliers.
And finally he agreed.
This is not a good idea as amateurs with pliers can be very dangerous around new piercings, but for me that pair of multi-purpose pliers was a godsend.He got it almost completely closed, and bumped my gums in the process, but my smiley was still completely painless. I swished with salt-water and put on my Chick-Fil-A uniform while Steve-o prepped a bottle of salt water for me to rinse with during breaks at work.
I survived at work [despite having arrived a half-hour late] and practiced smiling without my lip curling up for the customers and my boss.
Its been five days since I pierced it, and I love it. I feel so complete. It has still been painless, and no infection has developed yet. I have been rinsing with salt water and brushing more regularly. I have eaten a variety of things from rolled tacos in spicy sauce to mashed potatoes and limes with salt with no bad effects.
It feels like my gum is raised a little against my lip, but it isn't uncomfortable. I don't even remember what it felt like before because I wasn't very aware of that part of my body.
I know that some people's bodies reject scrumpers but I really hope that I can keep mine.
I've tried to be more informative than personal and deep because I personally feel that most people read these stories to get a feel of the experience and piercing or looking for tips instead of looking to borrow someone's personal reasons for a piercing, and I hope that I was able to help.
It was a very simple and painless [really!] piercing and if you have anymore questions you can contact me through BME or look at my IAM profile for pictures.
And for anyone else trying this at home [which is fairly common, I guess] don't even worry about it, really. Its almost too simple.
xox
-kiana t.