I've never really written about this before, but about a two years ago I decided I wanted a funky project. But where to put it? I decided on my left shoulder, in a star shape. I went in, talked to Sean, got the price and he went to make the surface bars and my friend Eric and I just wandered around. I've pierced my wrists and such before, so I knew a little of what to expect.
At A Glance Author San Contact San@bme.anon IAM BlueStar When Two years ago Artist Sean Studio Artistic Impressions Location Niagara Falls, ON Canada Sean took a good deal of time marking. He drew an upside down star on my arm and made marks from it. After a good deal of changing this, and that, and making sure the surface bars were proper lengths it was good to go.
Sean's a good piercer. Everything was set up and everything had been disinfected, autoclaved and so on, it was a nice, sterile environment. Eric was taking pictuers with my Palm Pilot as I was getting pierced.
Sean decided against using clamps, since they were just causing unecessary pressure and would probably end up bruising. He grabbed my skin for the first piercing and I remember it being a short burn. He followed through with the 14ga 5/8? surface bar and continued to the rest of the piercings. They all felt the same, but got a bit more intense as he went on. When it was done, there was blood dripping down my arm (only on my arm, my blood didn't touch anything), it made an awesome picture.
It burned for a while and I got a lot of comments on it if I was wearing a tank top. Healing it was a bit hard because there were five surface piercings and a normal cup full of salt water is hard enough to apply to one piercing, let alone five, so I just squirted warm salt water on the piercings and rinsed them with cold water.
They looked pretty terrible for a bit. The whole ?fresh piercing? look. Since there were no clamps, I didn't bruise at all. (Do note: You can bruise even if clamps aren't used. I don't bruise easily.) They were sore, sleeping was hard. They looked so good, but they didn't feel that good.
After weeks of aftercare and struggling with the piercings, one of the surface bars sunk into my skin overnight and, well, it was a bloody, disgusting mess getting the fucking thing out. I rinsed it out pretty well. It wasn't infected, I had hardly noticed that it sunk in until I looked at it, and there wasn't redness or anything.
I made sure to take care of the wound and made sure that didn't happen to any of the other piercings. I started being extra cautious, if I woke up on that side I'd panic. The piercings became and obsession. Most of the time, they weren't visible.
I gave up. They finally looked decent. I went to Artistics and Sean took them out for me. It was pretty depressing. We had used surface bars with 45 degree angles, and I've never really had a problem with them before. I had a cleavage surface piercing for almost two years when it started to thin out.
I do prefer 90 degree surface bars, however, I had a piercing (surface lower horizontal navel) with a great 12ga internally threaded 90 degree surface bar and I had the piercing for less than a week, and the scars would flare up for the next year. I also had my cleavage surface done again with a 90 degree surface bar and it lasted about the same amount of time as the one done previously.
I suggest if you get a lot of surface piercings at once, eat, sleep, properly. Take multivitamins. One surface piercing is hard enough to take care of, let alone five. Have a preference in what kind of surface bar works best for you.
I had the piercings for a couple of months and they had gone through many stages, such as being red and irritated, lymphing, swelling, getting caught in my clothes. I've never used discs before, but I'm thinking about trying to get my hands on some and having a nice surface project.
I did this before summer break and I swim a lot, so they would just get in my way. I liked the way it looked, but it just didn't work out for me that well. Sean did an excellent job with it. Everything was lined up perfectly and the piercings were quick and not that painful at all. The surface bars were custom made at the shop.
If you want a surface piercing, be prepared to take a lot of care of it. They're a lot of work, but a healed surface piercing looks fantastic. Use simple aftercare, such as salt water soaks.
Happy piercings.