So, when i was fourteen years old, for some reason or another, I decided that it was a good time to introduce my body to piercing. I think it was one of those youthful curiosity things, combined with a little or a lot of a budding "why not" attitude about life. The truly different part to this is that I somehow convinced my mother that an eyebrow piercing was harmless, and that I had a right to do what I wish with my body. I'll tell you, you have to love being raised by hippies. So although she objected to my newly desired form of self expression, she consented to take me to the studio to get a nice piece of metal placed through my eyebrow. At that time, and Id assume that this is the standard most places, to get pierced when you are under 18 required legal consent from a guardian, so of course my mom had to take me to get it done, how cool right? Here I am trying to assert my independence and freedom with my body, but have to take my mom along for the ride. I felt like the man.
At A Glance Author Paz Contact Paz@bme.anon When Five years ago Artist Dont Know Studio Alien Ink Location Charlotte, NC Anyway, we finally get to the actual piercing part, and the dude shows me everything that hes gonna use, pulls the stuff from the autoclave and lays it all out nicely in typical piercing fashion. However, he had the unique habit of drinking a beer right before the procedure, pausing long enough to do it, then resuming his mid day brew fix when it was over... Anyway, the piercing itself was quick, relatively painless, although a little bloody. He used clamps to pull my eyebrow out, and people have suggested to me that this contributed to the bleeding...The clamps were probably the most painful part of the whole process, the actual needle passing through was a non-event. It felt like something had flown into my eyebrow, like when a fly or bee whacks you on the face in mid-air, just the tiniest sensation. but as the needle went through, a tear fell to the floor, supposedly a reflex from the procedure.So in goes the 14ga, 3/4" captive bead ring, and he clamps the ball into the ring (ouch!), off with the clamps, and what do you know! I have a ring in my eyebrow and a nice stream of blood flowing out, woops.
The blood thing was strange, i ended up bleeding all the way home and even into the evening, I think maybe it really was the clamps. I know that when I got my ears pierced a few years back, not a drop of blood was to be seen, but maybe it was the different part of the body, different frame of mind, who knows... At any rate, I bled, a lot. But as with everything, it came to an end, and I was left with a nice little collection of dried blood on my face to clean up-no big deal. Sleeping that first night was a trip, Im a side sleeper, so I remember falling asleep on my back to avoid putting pressure on my eyebrow, then dreaming that I was being stabbed in the eyebrow and waking up to find that in fact, nobody had stabbed me, but "what the... I have a ring in my eyebrow!Oh, yea, that's supposed to be there..."
So sleeping on the ring itself was out of the question, and painful enough to wake me from my slumber. But once again, as with all things, this passed, and in a few days I was sleeping normally and life was good. Let me say that i loved my eyebrow, a little too much it seems. As I was soon to find out, when they tell you to not play with the ring unless you wash your hands, they mean it, you guys. I played with that little sucker all day long, until it got infected. Oh no, infection! At that time, I did not know how to deal with an infection, and flipped out, envisioning my face being bloated and falling off from an infected eyebrow. So here I go back to the parlor a few months later, and (sob) get my eyebrow ring removed. In retrospect, I miss the ring, but have never brought myself to get re-pierced, being perpetually unemployed for some reason and not ever having the funds to pay for it. But one of these days, I am getting re-pierced.
Oddly, for a while after the ring was removed, I could pinch my eyebrow, and actually felt a little scar tissue where the ring had been. Also, there were two little round scars, but these and the internal scar tissue has long since disappeared, so I never even talk about the ring anymore unless a friend brings it up. By the way, when the ring was removed, it healed within hours, so a word of wisdom, be careful with your steel, and enjoy your body!