The story of my smiley piercing is sort of funny because I did it just to help a friend (weird, eh?). I always thought that smiley piercings were cute, but I probably wouldn't have done it if my friend Shannon hadn't announced that she was trying to get into an art school to study photography and that she needed to get her portfolio together. She told me that she wanted to do an artist book (which, to the best of my knowledge is a group of pictures with a similar theme) on body piercings. More specifically, she wanted to take pictures of mine.
At A Glance Author Whitney Contact Whitney@bme.anon IAM Fuzzybeast When Two years ago Artist Jesse Studio Planet Ink Extreme Location Ottawa, ON We thought it would be neat to get some pictures of me getting pierced. Trouble is, I'm running out of places that aren't very obvious. I decided a smiley piercing would probably be the best. I planned to have it done with a barbell to hide it from parents and employers.
I went down to Planet Ink Extreme and told Jesse what I wanted. He said it was no problem and told me to set up an appointment for some time when the shop isn't super busy so that we could really take time to set up the shots.
Well, the day came around and Shannon (the photographer) and I skipped fourth period to get downtown on time. As it turned out we were about 20 minutes late, but Jesse was very nice about that. He took my jewellery to be autoclaved, and I got the regular forms from Travis, the counter guy.
Eventually, everything was ready to go. Jesse had set the piercing tools up nicely on his tray so that Shannon could take a picture of that. Then he went through everything very slowly and explained it while the camera clicked. I rinsed with some mouthwash. Jesse took the hollow 16ga needle and carefully bent it into a hook and then lubed it up with some gooey gel. I donned my sterile gloves and lifted my lip for Jesse. The clamps went on and kind of pinched. I said "ouch" without considering this reaction and the clamps immediately came off. Jesse adjusted the elastic band to make them less painful. The clamps went back on. The needle was lined up. Jesse said, "deep breath" and I felt some pain. "Lift your right hand a little higher". More pain. As the needle went through I felt a kind of stringy ripping feeling. That's the only way I can describe it. It was an odd sensation. Only slightly painful, but very interesting. While Jesse grabbed my jewellery from the tray I gave the camera a nice big needle smile. Jesse inserted the jewellery and got the ball on (I was impressed with how quickly he got the tiny beads on there). I gently dropped my upper lip down over the new jewellery.
At this point we discovered something surprising and neat. Because of my very ample upper lip web, the balls of the barbell are entirely visible when I smile. Jesse told me that he wasn't normally particularly fond of scrumper piercings but mine looked like a surface piercing in my gums. I gave the camera a nice big smile and Jesse said, "A copy of that is going in my portfolio." He was very pleased with it, as was I.
Jesse told me that oral piercings are the easiest to take care of and the fastest to heal. He told me that it wouldn't bleed or swell or hurt at all while healing. He told me I'd already been through all the pain already.
I left the studio grinning like mad and repeating "My mom is gonna KILL me!". After a few minutes the barbell started slipping from side to side which kind of bothered me at first. I kept trying to push it back with my tongue. It was frustrating. Eventually I accidentally realized that I can flip the barbell upside down so it sits underneath my lip and is completely hidden.
For the first few days eating took a lot of effort and a really long time. Since then I have figured it out. Flipping the barbell up makes things easier. I rinsed with warm salt water once I'd finally finished and went to get ready for bed. Brushing my teeth was not a problem. I thought it might be, but it went easily enough. I have noticed that spitting is hard though. The shape of the barbell makes moving my lips like that hard.
Jesse was right. Healing this piercing was no work at all. I rinsed with sea salt for the first few days, and that's all. The only difficult part about it is learning to do things with it. Eventually I learned that flipping the bar makes everything easier. I flip the bar up to keep it out of the way a lot when I'm eating or kissing or brushing my teeth (though it usually falls down when I brush the front ones).
I kept this piercing for about eight months before I decided to retire it. It had begun to migrate downwards and I was sure that it was only a matter of time before it ripped right out. Because of the migration it didn't even really look good anymore. Also, it was harder to keep flipped up in my lip which made eating a real pain in the ass. When I did finally take out the 16ga jewellery I wanted to see how much the hole had stretched so I kept putting in larger jewellery. Turns out that my piercing had stretched itself to an 8ga! Wacky.