At A Glance
Author	Em
Contact	Em@bme.anon
When	A month ago
Artist	Ruth... I think
Studio	Leeds Piercing Studio
Location	Leeds, UK

Hello all, this is obviously the story of my smiley piercing.

I'm a huge fan of oral piercings, owing to both the feeling of metal in the mouth and the extremely fast healing time. I'm desperate for cheek piercings, but if a good studio refuses to pierce the cheeks of under-18s, I figure that they know best.

So, after weeks of searching for an oral piercing that I like and do not already have, and is not the ubiquitous (round here at least) "chavette" Monroe, I stood in a weapons shop in York, waiting to purchase a discounted ornamental falchion (the way one does) when a cheerful girl in a top hat smiled at me, revealing a jewelled BCR.

I suddenly realised how a piercing that is often hidden can be so amazing. It's so cute! Only people I liked would see it; is that not great? (I'm not master of the nauseating social smile)...

These thoughts ran through my head for a while, before I realised one problem; I am a wanton spendthrift with no job, and had no money, and certainly not enough balls to pierce myself.

"Can I have £20?"

"No! Bugger off! Incidentally, what did you get in your mock exams?"

"Three As and 4 marks off an A."

Sighing wearily, "You can have £20."

I am most certainly not above bribery.

Now on to the interesting bit!

Two days later, I walked into Leeds Piercing Studio. Like BME, they refer to the piercing as a scrumper, but to me that sounds like an expletive and makes me blush. The studio was empty, so it took about two minutes, during which I filled out the consent form, paid, and chose a 1.2m BCR, before I was called upstairs to the piercing room.

Ruth (I hope that is her name) smiled at me. "You were the one that was nervous about her industrial,"

I'm always nervous, and always feel stupid afterwards. This time was no exception.

"Are you going to numb it?"

"No, it's really not worth it."

She looked inside my mouth, decided to do the piercing without forceps, changed her gloves, then took the needle out of its packaging.

"Stop moving your head back."

A pinch, a rather weird and pleasurable feeling actually, as the needle went through. The insertion of the jewellery felt, frankly, bizarre, and it took a few attempts to get the ball on the ring.

"Stop moving your head back!"

For the sake of comparison, I'd give the pain of this piercing as about 1 out of 10, compared with 2 for labret, 5 for nostrils, 7 for industrial and 8 for septum. This is a scale for wusses like me, obviously; I don't have any really painful mods and have certainly never given birth... The message is... do not fret about a smiley piercing!

I looked in the mirror and fell in love. It's so pretty!

We walked back to the car. My fiancé decided to have a conversation with someone about wool (?) on the way, and my mouth was becoming very bloody, which tasted nice. I think I frightened the poor man when I smiled at him!

Aftercare for this piercing is incredibly simple. Rinse your mouth out with salt water whenever you feel like it, and be careful when brushing your teeth. My smiley healed within days.

I know that this piercing isn't permanent, but I was annoyed when I thought it was growing out a few days ago. It constantly twinged in minor, but annoying pain. However, this seems to have ceased as inexplicably as it started.

I have had the obvious disgusted reactions from narrow-minded people (not that I'd been smiling at them!), but many compliments from people who have never seen this particular piercing. People seem to have trouble with its anatomy; have they never looked inside their mouth? Also, people seem to think that it hurt, and won't be persuaded otherwise.

For some reason, this piercing doesn't seem to want to sit centrally; the ball of the BCR always goes to the same side. This doesn't bother me, but consider whether you mind it.

In conclusion, the acquisition of this piercing was a very nice experience, and I would thoroughly recommend it. I will keep this piercing for as long as I can, and mourn it when it's gone. I also like it because it's one of the few "unusual" piercings I am able to get at my age; while I'm sure the studio over the road from where I got pierced would pierce my labia without ID, I don't trust them or their hygiene standards!

To reiterate, Leeds Piercing Studio = good, Pagan over the road = bad. If you live in Leeds, which is a personal tragedy in its own right, pay attention to this advice and don't join the irritating hordes of baby emos who think "Pagan pierces without ID, hurrah" and endure an extremely unpleasant experience.

Anyway, it's fun to smile at people who also have a smiley piercing, especially as it's so rare around here. Get one, you know you want to.