For the longest time I've wanted a big labret. I had always admired the tribal and nomadic peoples of other cultures and the modifications the performed on themselves, and being one who has been drawn to piercings and scarifications from a young age, it seemed like a natural progression to adapt some of these into my own mods.
At A Glance Author jay prince Contact koletraneradio@msn.com When It just happened Artist Erick Studio house of pain Location waterbury. ct I got my labret pierced with a 14 gauge labret stud five or six years ago at a tattoo shop I used to work at as piercer by a tattooist who was in no way qualified to do it, but back then I really didn't know any better. But it didn't give me any problems and I slowly stretched it over a period of 4 (+, -) years, but to my great disapointment, when I reached double zero last summer I realized that it had been pierced way too low and the delrin labret plug I had in was cutting into the webbing under my gums and was giving me great discomfort. So, in a random act of frustration, I removed the piercing I had so long worked for and it closed up in about a week, to the point where I couldn't even get an 18 gauge taper through it.
I had just gotten into using dermal punches in the shop I work at, so I thought that it would be a good idea to punch it a bit higher. So I started looking for a piercer who was willing to do it for me. An acquaintance of mine told me of a shop he frequented in Philadelphia called Infinite, and they do all sorts of dermal punching and scalpelling, and one of the piercers had a very large labret and could probably do it for me. So I e-mailed them and asked if they could do it for me and use the delrin jewelry I had. After a few weeks and no response, so I just decided to go down there anyway, and make a vacation out of it.
My lover Nancie and I packed ourselves and our son Kole into the car and took the six hour drive down there. We went to Infinite the first night we were there, and of course I forgot my jewelry at the hotel, so I bought some very nice plugs, and we went back the next day. I showed the plug to the piercer Jon, and he said he did not feel comfortable using delrin because of the formaldehyde in it, even though I had worn delrin with no problems for about a year. This was very understandable, seeing as he didn't know me, and it is often listed as toxic. So, again frustrated, I just got it pierced as big as he could do it(which was an 8gauge)a little higher than it was before. He did a great job, and it looked fine, but after a while I just decided to abort again.
A few months later in a stroke of good luck, I happened to meet a piercer (Erick of House of Pain) I had heard about but never met in person, who actually worked in the same town as me. He not only had a 3/4" plug in his lip, he was skilled with the scalpels. We talked about it for a long time and decided when my aborted labret piercing healed, we would cut right to 1/2 inch. I was so fucking excited!
So I searched the web for jewelry companies who made large labret pieces and found a glass company (Glasswear Studios) who I commissioned to make me a 1/2 inch black glass piece with a curved backing. It took about three weeks to come, and as soon as it did, I called Erick and told him I would come down on the following Saturday after work to get it done. I went at 9:00 when I got off of work with my friend Brendan who was going to take pictures to document it for me. I had already 'claved the piece, so we got right to it, cleaning and marking. We decided to make the cut 7/16" and stretch, so it wouldn't bleed too much. When he measured the piece just to be sure, he told me it was actually closer to 9/16". All that meant was that it was going to be a bit more of a stretch, which made me nervous, but I was ok.
When we agreed on a good placement, he put forceps right above the line and made the incision, which took about five seconds. It just felt like a lip piercing, not any worse at all. Then he put the 7/16" taper through to open it up, and that felt very strange, and kind of freaked me out. I started breathing really fast and Erick had to tell me to slow it up and calm down, and I got a grip on myself and then I was much better. When he put the 9/16" taper through I was expecting alot worse then it was, but it was still fucking intense. The glass piece went in, he cleaned it up, and that was it. It was perfectly centered, and exactly how I wanted it. There was a little blood leaking out for the next few days, but nothing significant. The inside fits my gum line just right, not pulling on my gums or cutting into the webbing at all.
Brendan got a lot of good shots with my camera, but the fucks at Ritz Camera shop fucked up my film and lost the entire roll, and refused to give me any sort of compensation, so I yelled at the manager telling her she had an attitude problem and she lost my business forever. But even though I lost the pictures, I still have my big lip piercing and the (very spiritual) experience of getting it done, and that's something I can carry with me for the rest of my life.