I origionaly had my belly button pierced about 2 years ago, but I soon took it out as I became bored of the really common piercing that girls as young as 10 seem to be getting (I work in a shop that sells jewellery and I see and sell mundane banana bars (that kids think are "pure smart"- I work in Dundee you see) every time I was at work).
At A Glance Author kim Contact kim@bme.anon When It just happened Artist myself (with the help of Elaine!) Studio my bedroom (and a public disabled toilet) Location Dundee, Scotland I have a genetalia piercing (a hoop horizintally through the hood) and one of my nipples done so I wasn't scared of needles. Furthermore I stretched one of my earlobes to 5mm (going from 1mm to 4mm in one go- ouch!)so I knew I could inflict pain on myself!
As I am totally broke at the moment I started joking around about doing my own piercing (I origionaly wanted to do my septum but wasn't sure if septum retainers were at all visible and my parents would go mental if I went home to visit them and they noticed that I had a piercing which would in their opinion make me "look like a bull". Plus I think I was too chicken to do that by myself.)- Elaine egged me on and she was wanting her tragus pierced so I thought we could both get piercings the same week so I decided what the hell lets go for it!
I ordered a proper body pircing needle from a seller on E-bay but got muddled with the sizes- they advertised a 1.3mm (for a 1.2mm piercing) needle as 18g (I was sure it was 16g that I needed to put a 1.2mm hoop in) but I went ahead and bought the 18g needle.
When it arrived this morning I could see that it was actually slightly thinner than the hoop but was too exited to stop and think properly, instead rushing about with boiling water, surgical spirit and ice-cbes.
I had decided to pierce a horizontal hole through one side, rather than the conventional vertical hole through the top. The needle went through surprisingly painlessly but I soon realised that there was no way the hoop was going to go through- the main problem being that I had done the piercing deeper than the hoop would go through (on top of the fact that the hoop was also thicker).
I ended up pulling the needle out, then deciding I would have to leave it in while I went shopping for some new jewellery. Inserting the needle back in was more difficult than I had imagined and I think I went off the track of the origional. It just wasn't wanting to appear out the other end and I was feeling more and more nautious. Finally I had the needle back through although I had to lie down for 5 mins to stop myself from passing out.
I used wire cutters to cut off the ends of the needle, then rushed down town as I contacted Elaine. As soon as she heard I had actually gone through with it she met up with me in town. However the thinnest body jewellery we could find was 1.2mm. I decided it would just have to do and picked the longest curved eyebrow bar they sold.
We rushed to the toilets armed with a bottle of surgical spirit and both squeezed into the disabled cubicle.
At first I tried to push the bar in whilst pushing the needle out but the needle soon fell out. After about 10 mins of pushing I managed to squeeze the bar most of the way through til we could see the end pushing against my skin. The hole at this end seemed to have partially closed up so Elaine took what was left of the needle re-pierced the end.
With Elaine's long fingernails and my shaky (and sweaty!) hands getting the ball on seemed impossible but we got there and after cleaning it again, we just admired our handiwork for a while (albeit a wee tad squint!).
I don't know what the people who used the cubicle next to our's thought we were doing but it probably didn't sound too good!
Now I found the experience exhileratig despite the pain stretching the hole to accomadate the 1.2mm curved bar, however all my friends reckon I'm a bit crazy and I would say to most, um SENSIBLE people to go to a good piercer cos you're not saving any money if it gets infected and you have to take it out (touchwood that mine won't!) or worse if you can't get the courage to do it in the first place!
Anyway, a HUGE thanks to Elaine for being there and although she has yet to get her tragus pierced she is actually considering getting it done tomorrow so good luck :-)