It was a sunny afternoon and there was a tattoo convention in town. It was quite a happening, with (pretty good) live (rock) music, people being tattooed and pierced all over the place in bars and tattoo-studios.
At A Glance Author coolvibe Contact coolvibe@bme.anon Artist Unknown guest piercing artist at local tattoo convention Studio Tattoocentre Alkmaar Location Alkmaar, The Netherlands After some watching and looking around I got really itchy and decided to go for a piercing. I already had a tattoo, and my guess was that it would probably not hurt as much. So I stepped into a place called Tattoo Centre Alkmaar, which was also the same place I got my first tattoo 6 years ago. It felt funny being in there again. The sound of whirring tattoo needles, chatter and the typical smell of a tattoo parlour brought back memories when I got here 6 years ago. The place was still almost exactly the same. I felt right at home. I checked out the designs and walked up to the piercing jewelry, checking out the assortiment of things you could wear on less typical places. I felt some restraint. "Am I really going to do this?", I asked myself. "Oh, why the f*ck not?", I reassured myself, walking up to the counter. There were some photo's of pierced people on it, and saw a picture of someone with a eyebrow piercing. "Damn that looks cool...", I thought. I remembered myself saying once that I wanted one of those eventually. That's when I knew where I wanted to get pierced. My eyebrow. The left one. Definately.
Some girl with quite a few perforations suddenly walked up to me and asked me if she could help me. She probably saw that I was pondering the big question (Shall I go for it or not?) I got a little bit nervous. This was it! I'm going to get pierced! "I wanna get pierced", I said to her. "Well, you've come to the right place", she smiled. She opened the door and let me in the 'theatre'. After the usual signing of disclaimers and other formal stuff (like paying and choosing of the jewelry) she asked me to sit down in a comfy tattooing chair and asked me where I wanted to get pierced. I pointed to my left eyebrow and smiled. She smiled back and grabbed a mirror and a marker. She marked a spot on my eyebrow in the vicinity where I pointed and held up the mirror, asking me if this spot was okay. I peered into the mirror, pondered about it for a second, visualizing a ring there and deemed it an okay spot. She asked if I wanted an anaesthetic, but I declined. She prepared the clamp and put it on my eyebrow. "Brace yourself", she said, and the needle was already through. "Did it hurt?", she asked. Surprisingly, it didn't. It was just a sharp sting in my left eyebrow, but that was basically it. She prepared to put the ring in, telling me that this might hurt a little bit more. She commenced and I felt some more slight stinging, but not really pain. I just sat there comfortably, chatting to the onlookers, telling them it didn't hurt. The piercing artist was just doing her thing, fastening the ring when she noticed to me that she was done. She held the mirror up gleefully and smiled. I gazed in the mirror and it was there, a shiney metal ring with a ball, in my left eyebrow. "Damn!", I thought, "that looks really cool". And it didn't hurt at all! And it didn't bleed too, which surprised me (because I heard some horror stories which proved to be very untrue, in my case). The artist could see I was pleased and she smiled and started telling me about the care and feeding of eyebrow piercings in great detail, using her own experiences, which made me feel even more comfortable.
After some chatting about aftercare and do's and don'ts I left with plenty of documentation about piercing aftercare. I went to my regular bar and went through it over a few beers to celebrate the occasion for myself. The piercing was a little sour for a few weeks, but that was basically because I sleep on my left side which knocked it about and made it feel painful sometimes, but after about a month it was pretty okay I had no discomfort whatsoever. I also didn't have any major infection or inflammation, except for a little crusting on the jewelry, but antibacterial soap took good care of that. I cleaned the area of the piercing religiously every morning and every evening.
Reactions from my immediate surroundings (a.k.a. family, friends and coworkers) were diverse, ranging from slight dissaprovement to sheer awe and appreciation. The piercing experience itself was positive. I will not shy away to get another one. If I only knew where she worked, I would not hesitate getting myself pierced by her again.
Cheers,
Coolvibe