An ex girlfriend of mine had her hood pierced. I saw it and fell in love with how pretty it was. It looked delicate, just a tiny sparkle that would catch the light from time to time but that was as much thought as I gave it for a couple of years until I split up with a long term boyfriend and moved to France.
At A Glance Author Bec Contact Bec@bme.anon IAM clockwrkrabbit When Six months ago Artist Maud Studio Art Tattoo Location Cherbourg, France I had been on the phone to him one night and he was asking why I'd never had one done if I liked them so much. It got me wondering, and I found myself in front of the piercing studio the next day. At the time, I'd only been in France for a fortnight and (unsurprisingly, maybe) I'd had little cause to need to know the technical terms for the more detailed parts of my anatomy – it's not something I've often attended lectures on anyway! But I explained what I wanted to the guy on the desk and was handed a consent form to complete.
With everything signed, and ID checked, I was shown through to the piercing room and introduced to Maud. I chose my jewellery – a 1.2mm stainless steel CBR, fresh from the autoclave, 1.2 seems to be the standard piercing gauge in France, then took off my trousers & underwear and sat on the obligatory dentists chair. It seems I was the first English person she had ever met (and therefore a bit of a novelty) so we chatted for a bit while she was setting up, then she changed her gloves and asked me if I was ready to start. The placement took a coupe of minutes, with Maud telling me all the words I didn't know en route, then came the clamps. And for once, I'll agree, on skin that delicate they were worse than the actual piercing. She lined up the needle, asked me to breathe in and out once and on the out breath I felt a sharp sting, a bit of tugging while the jewellery went in and I was done! It looked beautiful. I sat in front of the mirror and grinned like a fool while she explained the aftercare and healing time, before paying and heading off to the chemists for some pH neutral soap and 4% Bétadine solution.
My healing was fairly uneventful, this is far and away the easiest piercing I've ever healed – I washed it with pH neutral soap in the shower, morning and night, then applied the Bétadine solution to each hole with a cotton bud. This was then rinsed off with saline solution, and continued for 3 weeks, although by the end of the second it looked exactly as it does now. I had no crusties, no post-piercing pain at all and 6 weeks later I went back to ask about changing my jewellery for something with a bit more weight behind it. We took through a selection, from 1.6 to 2.4, with the 2.4 being the goal if at all possible and lo and behold, it went straight through without any tapering.
I loved this piercing with the 2.4 in it, and would certainly have stretched up further. As it stands today, I'm wearing 2 very small diameter 1.2mm rings in it, one through each side – almost like 2 high inner labia piercings. Why? Placement.
When I was back in England at Christmas I added a rather problematic Nefertiti piercing to the collection. (My VCH Turned Nefertiti) If you plan on getting several close genital piercings, it's maybe advisable to tell your piercer so they can use a more flexible placement, as I had incredible amounts of pinching from the two piercings together. I put this down to the fact that my Nefertiti was unexpectedly deep (I had asked for a normal VCH, having spoken to the piercer again, he'd felt I'd prefer a Nefertiti...) and presumed the problem would go away when it had healed. It didn't. I downsized, still no change. I downsized again and still had the pinching.
Because I'd had each piercing done by a different piercer, they were each quick to blame the placement of the other, which didn't give me much help as to how to solve the problem. I had a look myself (yes, very elegant, I know) and saw that the middle of the CBR in my horizontal was visible at the back of the piercing due to it being too far forward (I presume the whole of the back of the jewellery should have been under the skin). My Nefertiti had been put close behind this exposed part, leaving the skin that was caught in the middle feeling more than a little sorry for itself! This problem really wasn't visible when she'd marked me up, nor was it a problem at all when it was the only genital piercing I had. It was, however, something she should have picked up on.
Putting one smaller CBR in each side has stopped the pinching completely but has totally changed the aesthetic of the piercing. It is still pretty, but I've lost the piercing I waited so long for.
The moral of the story? Check and double check the placement, and if you're planning multiple piercings in the same area let your piercer know so they can make allowances for them in your placement. I might also have fared better going to the same piercer for both piercings, instead of having a 'when-in-France' and a 'when-in-England' piercer.