At A Glance Author eonblue11 Contact eonblue_11@hotmail.com When It just happened Artist Dee Studio To The Point Location Calgary, Alberta Throughout the years I've collected a few nice piercings that have interested me. I started out as the girl who couldn't even bear to have her ears pierced and then was suddenly bit by "piercing bug" and sucked it up and got my ears done (with a gun, shh! we won't tell anybody) after that it became second ear holes, third ear holes, lip, navel, double nostrils. Nothing crazy, but just enough to satisfy the itch. I had taken my lip ring out a few years back due to it being off-centre, which took me awhile to noticed because my lip had always been slightly swollen from it. Needless to say, I've decided this was a "sketchy" piercing and will never go back to that piercer.
So after a few years of just a couple nose studs I'd started really looking into the vertical labret, it seemed classy & cute, a nice size for my petite self and plenty of variety in the jewelry you can purchase for it. I only recently became super serious about wanting this piercing, checked that it was okay with work, and spent a few late nights researching this piercing very thoroughly. Today I decided was the day since with piercings I need to psych myself up and don't like to plan ahead, rather just do it that day. I had an interview in the morning and the whole afternoon free so I called up a buddy and after some sushi, headed downtown to do the deed. The place I had been told to go to apparently no longer existed, so I went back to the place where I had one of my nostrils done and I remember it being very clean and orderly and my piercing had been placed nicely and healed the best out of them all so that seemed like the right place. The piercer (who I *think* is named Dee but I could be wrong) was super nice and answered any questions that I had concerning the piercing (I was afraid it would interfere with the scar tissue from my retired lip piercing) and then let me pick out jewelery. I found a cute little 16g barbell that would fit my lip and wasn't too big, since I do have smaller facial features and didn't want something overbearing on my face.
After that I filled out my forms and paid for the piercing/jewelery and read about the aftercare of the piercing. Then I headed to the back room with the piercer & my buddy, and the piercer had me sit on the little dentist type chair, she made me swish with the dreaded Listerine, swabbed me with the also dreaded iodine (yay stained yellow lips!) and marked me, which is when we noted the complete off-centred-ness of my old lip piercing. The marking seemed perfectly centre and in a very nice position, so we ready to roll. She had me lay (lie?) down on the chair, clamped my lip, lined everything up, did the little tester poke (which somehow feels worse than the piercing itself, maybe because it's a tease) and then had my inhale and pierced on the exhale. It wasn't too bad at all, a little sore, a bit of a pinch, but nothing unbearable or agonizing. I kept thinking about the filling I got a few months back and how much more the numbing needle in my gums hurt than this and that made everything seem better. I also think I'm so much more of a whimp than I am, when it comes to piercing time I've never experienced too much pain, just slight discomfort. I sat there with the needle in my lip for a minute and then she put the jewelry in, when I realized I was bleeding, which was kind of gnarly, I've never bled during a piercing before. So she got the jewelry all tightened up, got the blood off my face for me since I was pretty bloody (don't let this frighten you! this piercing is pretty easy, I guess my lip just didn't like being poked today and decided to bleed) and then I got to check it out. I instantly loved it! The placement is great and the barbell is the perfect size, I think I will definitely downsize the balls when it is healed since I'm really picky about thinks being symmetrical/same sized and I'd like to have them match the size of my nose studs. But other than I love this piercing! I think it's super cute. Afterwards we went to 7-11 for popsicles and headed home. It's swelling up pretty good but the pain is pretty much gone at this point, I just have a lovely shiny metal fat lip. I'm about to head out for some "supplies" (bactine, listerine, etc) and I'm pretty stoked on this piercing at this point, I'm glad I did it! Maybe I'm biased, but everyone should get a vertical labret! They are easy, quick, cute & pretty painless.