My vertical labret was my fourth professionally done piercing – I had started with my nostril, followed by my vertical hood a year later, and, six months after that, my 10g tongue. The nostril and the tongue had been removed about a few months before, around the time that I broke up with my boyfriend of two years, and my face had felt empty.
At A Glance Author anonymous When Six months ago Artist Mark Studio Tusk Location London Massive life changes surrounded getting this piercing: I had just started university, having returned from ten months living in another country with my newly-ex-boyfriend, and was living with my family again, struggling to feel like an adult rather than reverting back to being a teen. Pissing my mum off with an unhideable facial piercing probably wasn't the most convincing way to do this, but actually, having spent my adolescence worrying about what she thought the whole time it was pretty symbolic of having grown up and become my own person. It wasn't some ill thought-out rebellion...I had wanted this piercing for a long time and since I was now in a position where I didn't need a job, my school wasn't putting restrictions on how I looked, I was two years into being old enough to get pierced without consent and I had the money, I could see that the real obstacle had been fear of other people's perceptions. Not exclusively those of my family and my mother in particular, but that was the biggest thing to get over.
I mentioned it to her a few days beforehand, which I think took more guts than getting the piercing itself. She made some pretty thin arguments about the fact that I may not want it forever – of course this, and scars left by piercings, are worth real consideration especially with facial piercings. I have a scar from my nostril and I am aware that should I remove it there will be marks left on my lip, which I'm okay with. Her theories about people using piercings to hide behind were less worth listening to, because by not getting the piercing I was doing more hiding in my view. I'm not someone with a lot of pierced friends or a pierced crowd to fit into, and I'm not someone who wants people to either talk to me because they think piercings equal cool or avoid me because piercings equal scary. I just wanted to be true to myself: I love the way this piercing looks and love the aesthetics of piercings generally. My pierced lip is a way of telling people this....they might interpret it in any funny direction they like of course but that's what it's communicating for me.
If I'm honest, I chose to be pierced at Tusk because I was pretty sure that the other place I'd have pierce me in London, Cold Steel in Camden, would only pierce at 1.6mm and I wanted a 1.2mm piercing. The larger size is probably the way to go if you want faster healing, less chance of tearing, migration, rejection etc – Cold Steel are big on doing things properly as far as I can tell, which is good, and I would wholeheartedly trust them with any piercing. But having read a lot, talked to people and considered what I wanted this piercing to look like, the smaller jewellery appealed more and I decided to risk the problems.
I went in and talked to them around a week beforehand and booked myself an appointment a few days later. A friend met me outside uni and we went to have a sandwich and catch up beforehand. When I got to Tusk I was pretty nervous, both about the pain and my mum's reaction. I had a feeling she thought she might have talked me out of it, or at least made it clear enough how upset she'd be to put me off.
Mark, the piercer, seems to be a pretty nice guy, quite chatty, cheery and helpful. I'm not too worried about pain anyway but every other one of my piercings has hurt quite a lot and this one did not. I think the breathing in and out three times with the needle going through on the third is what did that trick but maybe I just have numb lips or something, I'm not sure. Anyway once it was in it was in, I paid my £25 (I think) and said see you in two weeks for a check-up, and in another two for a bar-change.
In fact I went back heaps more than that – around six visits over the next three months. The first was within a week – I was paranoid about a little lump forming. Dave was there that time, he has a sleepy, intelligent manner that puts me at ease, and told me there was nothing to worry about as long as I kept my lips protected from the cold, which was making them very dry, and kept up with the aftercare. I was occasionally using their aftercare cleaning solution, but mostly sticking to morning and evening salt soaks: 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt in a mug of boiled water, which I bathed my lip in for ten minutes once it was cool enough and then cleaned it off with a cotton bud. I was also using an alcohol free mouthwash sometimes, when it felt necessary, but both balls basically rest on the outsidey part of my lip. Carefully applied lip balm, away from the holes, stopped my lips from cracking.
It wasn't ever noticeably swollen but it was two months before I could change the bar down at all, and in the past four months there have been two more changes. I believe it's still shrinking. The same minor but persistent swelling happened with my tongue so I think it might just be me – it was quite frustrating when I would go back feeling certain that the length was aggravating the swelling and I needed to go down half a millimetre, because Mark told me several times to wait until it reduced more. I appreciate that a lot of people are probably just impatient about their bar changes, and he claimed it was for the sake of saving me money, but I know my body and I think I'd have had less problems healing if I'd have had the changes when I thought they were necessary, not weeks later.
There haven't been huge problems though, but there's still some crusting even now and there were days when they piercing just hurt, but I think this was due to the movement from the bar being too long. I've had both straight and curved barbells, and found the straight one I'm wearing now to be the most comfortable but may get a curved one soon too. Tusk have only sold me externally threaded barbells which I don't think is great, particularly in lips, so I'm on the look-out for 16ga curved barbells without enormous balls, which are not that easy to find.
Reactions to the piercing are mostly positive, or perhaps I just don't notice the rest. A few weeks ago a middle aged woman said "Oh, yuck.." and made a face at me in the street, which I thought was amazingly rude, but otherwise I've only ever received cheery questions, compliments galore and stares on the tube (which I take to be admiring). Mostly people don't mention it, and I forget it's there. My mum hated it and remains unmoved in her opinions about piercings as far as I know, but we still get on. She told me recently that she thinks it's a way of me adding a "don't-fuck-with-me" touch to my otherwise gently pretty face, which just goes to show how massively perceptions can vary – I see this piercing as gentle and pretty, the idea of me trying to intimidate anyone is laughable. Exhibiting confidence maybe, but that's something else.