At the time of my nipple piercing I had eight other piercings – 3 in my left lobe, 1 left tragus, 1 right cartilage, 4ga and 2ga in my right lobe and a central lip piercing. My nipple piercing was going to be a present from my boyfriend for my seventeenth birthday so the day before we set out on our little mission.
At A Glance Author Alyss Contact Alyss@bme.anon When Six months ago Studio Attitudes Location Darlington First of all we went to Skin Deep which is on the other side of town. We went inside and I told the guy behind the counter what I wanted and he gave me a form to fill in. This is when the problems started. I wasn't 18, and wasn't prepared to lie about my age so I told him the truth. He said he didn't pierce nipples on under 18s which I suppose is a good policy – it means they are professional anyway. So, very disappointed, we left.
We wandered around town for a bit and were all ready to go home but I was absolutely desperate to get pierced – I hadn't built myself up for this for nothing! There was one other place that we could try – Attitudes - and I knew that I could get it done there because they would pierce anybody. I suppose my desperation blinded me to the potential problems that this could create. But, I was ready, and if I didn't get it done soon I would chicken out so off we went.
Attitudes doubles as a sort of beauty salon so when we went in there was a woman getting her nails done. I went to the counter and said to the woman performing the manicure that I had come for a piercing. I was trying to be discreet, because although I wasn't against people knowing about my nipple piercing I didn't want to announce it in front of a complete stranger who quite obviously had nothing to do with the piercing scene. However the woman in charge went "What kind?" so I had to say it anyway, earning an odd look from the lady getting her manicure.
I had to wait for a while so that she could finish off the nails she was working on and then go and set up her stuff. Although it is not particularly professionally run, Attitudes is very clean, so I didn't think that I was about to get any horrible diseases by going there. After a while I got called into the room and my boyfriend stayed outside saying that he'd rather not watch anybody else handling my breasts. So, alone, I went into the piercing room.
The woman sat me down on the bed thing and asked me to lift up my top. I wanted just my right nipple doing, so she cleaned it and marked it with one of those surgical pens and got me to like down. I asked about jewellery options because I really wanted a 12ga ring but she said they only had 14ga rings. Oh well. Whilst I was lying down she told me "I'm just going to put the clamps on and freeze it." The clamps were fine, actually I kind of liked it, and the freeze spray just felt really cold. Then she pierced me.
I can say that it was not the most comfortable experience of my life. I wasn't exactly screaming out in pain, but the freeze spray had absolutely no effect and I felt that needle go through every millimetre of my skin. I tried to see what was going on, but I have quite small breasts and my top was folded over so I couldn't see over it. When she put the jewellery in it hurt even worse – it felt like she was trying to pull my nipple off or something. I must have made a face or a noise because she said, "It's all right, I'm just putting the ball on." I sat up, and my nipple was hurting a bit and it felt sort of tight, but I caught sight of it in the mirror across from me and it looked beautiful! I got her to put a patch on it, and left – braless and smiling.
The night after I had it done it bled quite a lot but I kept the patch on which helped to keep my clothes off it. It was a bit sore for the next few days – but I noticed that I had a lot more sensation from it and even a brush of clothes was enough to make it all hard. However, about 2 weeks later I noticed that it didn't seem to be healing at all. The ring had always struck me as a bit small, so I had bought a beautiful blackline ring with a red stone in the ball as a backup in case the ring caused problems. I changed it there and then, possibly something that is not to be advised but I didn't trust Attitudes enough to get them to do it for me. After that it felt much better and started to heal. I played it safe and didn't wear a bra for two weeks so as not to irritate it.
Now, my piercing has basically healed up. It still gets a bit crusty sometimes but I clean it with saline solution regularly to keep it healthy. My boyfriend and I are both very happy with it – I kept the blackline jewellery in and it is very sensitive and responds well to gentle play. It is definitely one of my favourite piercings – I now feel very confident about a part of my body that I used to feel unhappy with.