I've got a good deal of moderately to heavily modified friends. I've been interested in body mods since I was 7 years old. My father has always told me "not until you're 18", meaning that anything besides the six holes that are already in my ears is off limits to me. However, a few years ago, he told me that I could get my navel pierced when I turned sixteen.
At A Glance Author Morgan Contact sexy_lil_pixie15@hotmail.com When It just happened Artist Steve Truitt Studio Ten In One Location Albuquerque, NM There was only one major flaw to that plan: I HATE navel piercings. They are over done and far too trendy in my eyes. But, looking around on BME I came across the "navel projects" section and began to take notice. I've always been a person who doesn't like going with the norm, but if I must, I'll tweak the hell out of it.
Over the last two weeks, I read a huge amount of experiences, talked to several of my piercer friends, and just did as much research as I could to get a grasp on things related to navel piercing. I do huge amounts of research whenever a mod-related subject comes up in my life. I like to know what I'm getting into.
So I finally got the courage to ask my father for his Ok. I talked things over with my mother, and waited patiently for my father to finally come home for the race he was officialling. He came home, I asked, things were all go.
I called Steve at Ten In One and told him I'd finally be giving him some money instead of just food on this visit. He said all right, and asked what I had in mind. I told him I wanted two basically horizontal navel piercings. We discuss, and he threw my jewelry and the rest of his supplies into the autoclave.
I arrived at Ten In One, talked with Steve about placement and made sure my idea was going to work with my particular navel. My father and I took care of all the paper work, and found out the credit card machine at the shop was being cranky today. So, my father ran over to the nearest ATM machine, and Steve kept me as ransom so he'd be sure to come back.
My jewelry came out of the autoclave while my father was out getting money, so Steve and I headed back to the piercing room to get things started.
I climbed onto the table/chair and he cleaned my stomach. I stood up, we haggled over the markings, and he eventually came to like where the marks he kept redoing were. I climbed back onto the table/chair, and laid back. Steve measured in from the markings for the outer holes, and then applied the second set of dots. He cleaned my stomach once more, applied a small amount of lube, and then opened the needles and the jewelry and set everything up.
We picked out 14ga-curved barbells for each piercing. Each barbell is angled up slightly, creating a "V" sort of shape. Steve lubed up the needles, and I kept up my deep breathing. He lined the needle up with the inner mark on the left side of my navel. I breathed in; he said "ready" and I breathed out as he pushed the needle through. It hurt...a lot. I apparently have very tough skin, so he had to push harder midway through the skin. I yelped, and everyone in the lobby laughed.
Steve stood back, let me breath for a few minutes, and then lined up the second needle for the right side. Again, I breathed in, he said "ready" and I let out my breath as he pushed the needle in. The second one wasn't as tough to get through, so, thankfully it didn't hurt as much.
Steve stood back, let me breath for a few more minutes, and then got the barbells ready to insert. He slid the right one in with almost complete ease. A friend of mine who happened to be waiting for his latest tattoo in the lobby was cracking jokes, making it impossible for me to not laugh. With that in mind, it was very difficult for Steve to slide in the second bar without pinching me, causing another yelp from me. (Serves me right for laughing huh?) He put the balls on each barbell, and I lay on the table for a few more minutes to make sure I wasn't shaky when I stood up. He handed me some sea salt and I was gone.
I stopped by the store to get some antibacterial soap, and did a salt soak about 5 hours ago. A very good experience in all. The real thing to remember is to make sure you are very comfortable with the person who is putting holes in your body.