The year was 1995, late fall, sunny and warm. I had just gotten my very first tattoo that day from my friend Lonnie and was about to get my very first professional piercing from a place across the street from the tattoo parlor.
At A Glance Author SatanTheCat Contact SatanTheCat@bme.anon IAM SatanTheCat When Five years ago Artist Silver Studio Studio 206 Location Grand Haven, MI Studio 206 - a trendy spot where you could get your hair done like the girls and guys in Chicago, New York and every other large city. I was mesmerized by the beauty of the new building inside and out and the beautiful people working inside. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly go there to get my hair and nails done. I was there for one thing and one thing only. I was going to finally get pierced...professionally.
Upon arrival, I found that the piercer was a young man with long silver hair and with only one name - Silver. (How cool is that?) Well, being that piercing was fairly new to our area, I had no idea of what to look for in a studio and in health regulations and the likes. The studio was clean, for the most part. It was a brand new interior to an old building. Black with white Christmas tree type lights strung around the upper portion of the 'piercing booth'. The look was very trendy and was able to hide a lot of dirt and the likes. Silver used latex gloves but touched everything under the sun with them on. The phone, the chair, his radio, etc. If I knew then what I know now, I would have scolded him and walked out or perhaps just walked out.
He asked me a series of questions relating to the piercing I wanted and I layed down on the cold hard table to get clamped. Clamps. Eek. Think BBQ tongs and rubberbands to squeeze them tighter. Clamping and prepping and finally...I could see the needle he planned to use. EEK! I had no idea what to expect since my first piercing was done by MY hand with a 'starter ear stud' and a very boring night watching television. It was HUGE!
He marked the spot on my nipple and pushed the needle through. No warning. No breathing. All pain. I clentched my fists, my eyes and I'm sure a few other things that aren't really worth mentioning. heh. He moved the needle around and said he was putting the captive ring through. It took him FOREVER! He moved and tugged and I was almost in tears. All in all, it was painful but I didn't think anything of it since it was my first piercing and I really didnt know what to expect. Silver gave me some pointers on how to take care of it and when I could change the jewelry and then it was over and I was on my way home. He said I could wash it with soap and water and that it wouldn't heal completely for almost six months or so.
One year and six months later, I still had ooze, blood and it got painfully sore when I'd go anywhere near the frozen food section of our local supermarket, so I removed it. I'm not sure what made it not want to heal, but I was scared because I found that Studio 206 didn't have an autoclave. I'm not sure if they have an autoclave now or not, but I'm pretty sure that they now deal with hair and nails exclusively.
When people ask me about my mods, I tell them all the fun stuff about them and the experience I had while getting them done, but I also toss in a lot about how people should be more aware of the effects of a dirty studio or the lack of appropriate sterilization. It's sad, but not many people with mods in my area can tell you what an autoclave is or does. Everything about that frightens me.
I think people should read up on as much as they can on the mod they plan on getting. I believe that more tattoo and piercing shops should hand out information on cleanliness and promote more of an understanding than trying to make a quick buck off the uninformed. I believe that the Health Department should make information available to the general public if they so ask for it. Then perhaps decisions would be easier in regards to what mods people would prefer and where they should go to get them done.
I don't know why my nipple piercing didn't heal, but I'll always blame it on the fact that I was uninformed. Perhaps it was MY fault for not asking the right questions, but I still place a small part of the blame on Silver, for his lack of ethics in the fact that he knew it was my first piercing with lack of prior knowledge of piercings and mods in general.