I have always had a secret love for piercings, but it wasn't until near the end of my first year of college that I actually decided to go ahead and get something other than my ears done.
At A Glance Author isadora k. Contact isadora@halfsickofshadows.com When A month ago Artist daniel Studio inferno Location south street, philadelphia My roommate at the time was also very interested in piercings, and had had her nose and navel done previously. Her next goal was her nipples. So when she was seriously debating whether or not to get them pierced, I decided to help her research the process. Long story short, I ended up convincing myself to get mine done, too.
So, one week before the end of the school year, my roommate and I and a few friends went down to South Street in search of a good place to get holes punched into our nipples. The first place we stopped at seemed to concentrate more on tattoos than piercings, so we decided against it and tried Inferno instead. The woman at the desk there was extremely nice, and after talking to her for a bit we decided to go ahead with things.
We picked out our rings, 12g 9/16th" stainless steel, and paid the $80 fee. Because I'd never had anything major pierced before but my roommate had, I made her go first so I could see how it was done. Daniel, our piercer, was extremely nice and professional, and he allowed both myself and an additional friend back into the piercing room to watch.
The room was smallish but comfortable and clean, with a big mirror straight across from the chair. My roommate sat down while Daniel got all the supplies together, showing us how everything came in their own sterile package and explaining to us what each individual tool was and how it was used.
When everything was ready, Daniel asked my roommate to take off her shirt and whip 'em out. Throughout the time we were there, he was very friendly and making jokes, which really helped us relax. Once her shirt was off, he cleaned both of her nipples and used a blue pen to mark where he wanted the needle to go through. Once she approved the locations, he put a clamp on her nipple, opened the packages containing the needles and pierced her. There was no blood to speak of, and while she admitted it was very painful, my roommate did not cry at all. And when everything was done, she was ecstatic and couldn't stop staring at herself in the mirror. We all agreed that the piercings looked really, really good on her, and, encouraged, I decided it was my turn.
The same process occurred with me as with my roommate: Daniel cleaned my nipples, marked where the needle should go, and clamped the first one. I was very nervous and excited, but wary of the pain. Daniel had me breathe deeply in, and upon breathing out, he pierced my right nipple. The pain was bad, but it was not nearly as bad as I had been expecting. And it was kind of amusing to look down and see a needle with a cork stuck on the end sticking out of my boob, but that didn't last very long since Daniel inserted the jewelry almost immediately afterwards. The insertion did not hurt at all or even feel very weird; I barely noticed.
Then my left nipple was clamped, I breathed in, the needle was pushed through, and, OUCH. It hurt much more the second time. I think I accidentally jerked backwards a little bit with this one, but luckily it did not mess anything up when I did. I think the second nipple always hurts more than the first, just because you know what you're expecting the second time around. But regardless, the pain was intense but brief, and soon I had another ring in. This ring didn't want to close properly at first though, so Daniel had to get out a special set of pliers to force it into place, but this extra effort did not hurt at all and only took another minute or so to complete.
I looked at myself in the mirror and was extremely happy with what I saw. I love the way the rings accentuate the nipples and make them look slightly bigger. My only complaint is that for the actual piercing you pretty much have no choice on the size of the rings you get, because if you get ones that are too small then they are more likely to either reject or create a curved hole. I have fairly small breasts though, so the normal rings look a little big on me. I fully intend to get smaller rings once the holes are healed up in three to six months, and then I will be completely satisfied.
After everything was pierced and cleaned up, my roommate and I received printed aftercare instructions which Daniel explained for us just to make sure we would take care of our new piercings. We thanked him and then we left as happy customers.
There was absolutely no pain at all for about ten or fifteen minutes afterwards, but then the adrenaline and endorphins wore off and we were very sore. However, we cheated and took Advil (Advil being an ibuprofen-based pain reliever, since you don't want to use aspirin which thins the blood) and were mostly pain-free for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we found we'd both bled a little bit during the night, but we just cleaned everything up and didn't worry too much about it. I personally felt very little if any soreness after the initial night, but my roommate said hers were a bit sore on the day after. She didn't take any medicine for it though, and was all right. The second night they also bled a little again, but by the third night there wasn't even any more blood.
It has been a little over two weeks now, and everything is pain-free and healthy and seems to be healing nicely. I still love how they look! No regrets at all, and a great bonding experience for me and my roommate. We spent our last week at college sitting around topless together, flashing all our friends. After all, what else is college for?