I have always been interested in Tattoos and body art ever since I was a little kid. I used to get in to trouble as far back as kindergarten for writing and drawing on my self, and I have just been fascinated with them and the tuff pirate's and bikers from the movies I used to watch when I was a kid. I have been getting tattoos since I was 20 but did not have any piercings. Until in August on my 29th birthday that I decided to get my first piercing, I had been giving it a lot of thought and although I had never gotten a piercing before other than my ears witch were still regular earrings at that time. I had been thinking about it for a wile and figured it was about time to do so. I had been thinking about getting my eyebrow or my tongue done but I decided on getting a labret instead.
At A Glance Author DoubleBarrel Contact j_kraft1@charter.net When Ten years ago or more Artist Wes Studio Passionfish Tattoo Location Maryville TN I went to see my friend Verni Russell she owns Passionfish Tattoo shop here in Maryville TN. She is an award winning artist at local tattoo shows as well as winning awards at the Marked for life Tattoo convention in Orlando FL. I went in and she showed me the different gauges of jewelry and the many different styles that she had at the shop I picked out just a plain stainless steel ball labret in a 14 gauge to start off with and she explained that they would use a 12 gauge needle to make the hole I said ok. I walked in to the piercing room it had all kinds of pictures of the different kinds of body jewelry and pictures of some of the past clients that have gotten there work done at her shop. They got out all the prep stuff out and I sat up on the table it was an old ob-gyn exam table. Verni said Wes was going to be the one to pierce my lip because she had a tattoo customer to work on I said it was ok I knew Wes and he was good at his job. He first used a sharpie to mark the center of my lip then he gave me some Listerine to rinse out my mouth to get the inside of my lip numb and to clean it out. Then he put the oval clamp on my lip and made sure it was centered and looked like it was in the right spot, there were rubber bands on the clamp so it was not too tight. Then he got out the piercing needle and showed me that it was sealed in the autoclave packaging so I would know it was sterile then he put it in some alcohol to make sure it was clean then he took the labret out of a sealed autoclave package and put it in the alcohol as well. They are always very careful and through about the sterilization at the shop. Then explained what was going to happen. He said that I will here and feel 2 pops as the needle comes through and that would be it and not to move until he had the jewelry in and tightened. He took the piercing needle out of the alcohol and dipped the sharp end in a glob of Vaseline, he said it would make things slide through easier. Then Wes looked at me and said ok on 4 are you ready I said as I will ever be and he started to count 1, 2, pop – pop and it was done. I was surprised it did not hurt as much as I had thought about like a bee sting. After he put the back of the labret in and tightened the ball I said what happened to 3 and 4 and he said that most people tense up on 3 and move on 4 so he just skips that part. I said thanks for letting me know, there was very little blood and in 3 weeks it was just about healed up I used mouth wash everyday to keep it clean and in 6 weeks I changed out the steel ball for a blue door knocker that my wife picked out. I now have about 10 different labrets all of them are metal I do not like the plastic ones. I change them out from time to time just to be different. You should see the looks I get at my kids school most of them think it is cool and some times they ask questions like did that hurt or when am I going to get another one.
The labret was my first piercing I got the bug and have had more since then that I will tell you about later. Thanks for having a great site and I hope to post more of my stories soon.
Thanks ............. Jake Kraft