Tattoo and Body Art Piercing

It all started long long ago about . . . oh I would say four (ish) years ago when all I wanted in life was to get my tongue pierced. I was pretty internet savy at the time and my favorite website was, you guessed it, ebay. One day I had this bright idea (light bulb) to look up tongue rings online. I found a wholesale deal of five stainless steel tongue rings (don’t ask why I needed five) and ordered them. At that moment I thought, “what is the point if I can not put them anywhere. So I ordered myself a 14 gauge (remember from my previous blog) needle. When they came in the mail I chickened out and had my friend pierce my cartiledge. In thispictur, it shows all the different areas you can pierce on your ear, I had my friend pierce my upper orbital.

Since then I became wildly addicted to piercings (although my dad did not approve in anyway) and began to pierce many other places on my body. Starting with my tongue, then my ear lobes multiple times, then on to mass ordering and starting a business. Throughout my life as a piercer I (for pleasure and practice) have pierced my tongue five times, nipples four times each, my belly button twice, my eyebrow twice, my industrial (a straight 2 inch barbell through my cartiledge), my conch, and my tragus. Sooo many interesting stories to share behind all of these piercings that shall be saved for a later date.

When piercing, one should always use sterile needles, never reuse needles, clean everything you use, and definitely wash your hands. Or if you plan on getting a piercing make sure the place you go does all this and beyond. Also, based off of a collective group of testimonies of personal experiences and stories, go to someone who makes you feel comfortable and remains friendly through the entire process (this places you at ease with the person).

With that said, there are plenty of ways to pierce and types of equipment that can be used. One of the most common ways to pierce ear lobes is by using a gun which is what most individuals (at younger ages) tend to have performed. The reason is because the gun is relatively quick and painless (well the lobe is a rather insensitive spot anyway) and very consistent. In my experiences of being a piercer I have never used a gun because forme the investment for purchasing one was worth nothing because I mainly pierced parts in which a gun was incapable of doing.

To get nore in depth about the reason for this is the concept of gauges. A piercing gun only pierces a 20 gauge size. all other places on the body (nipple, tongue, nose, etc.) require a much larger size. When talking on terms of gauges it is exactly like wiring, the lower the number the bigger the gauge. Here is a diagram of the different sizes:

To finish, 16 gauge is standard for noses, eyebrows, and lips. 14 gauge are standard for tongues, nipples and tongue. The reason for this is because bigger gauges are obviously harder to rip out. To pierce gauges, a piercer should use tri-bevel sterilized stainless steel hollow tip needles. basically, a really sharp hollow needle. There are two types, curved and straight needles. Here is a picture of the tri bevel tip:

Having been so passionate about piercings for so long I have seen and pierced many different places on a human body. A few awkward places I have pierced have included tongue’s, Nipple’s, Elbow’s, and even an arm! With that said, truth is you could, if you had the desire, get a piercing pretty much anywhere on the body. Before we get into some of the technical discussion behind piercing, here is a picture of the arm I pierced (Do not worry, more videos and pictures will be posted later in this blog).

To finish talking about these odd places where there is motion and a place that lacks depth in the skin (like a back or arm), they are called surface piercings and will not last a long time if not pierced right and the wrong jewelry is used. The process is called pocketing and the type of jewelry that is used is in the shape of a staple like these:

In the piercing culture surface piercings are becoming increasingly popular especially on the upper spinal cord and back areas. For females, a very popular unique piercing is called the corset piercing in which they will pierce their side several times (8 +) and tie a ribbon between the piercings. And I will state that people really passionate about piercings are generally also passionate about tattoos and tend to create a flow with the two. An example of this is a friend of mine had a rather large cross tattooed on his back and he had pierced the corners of the cross.