A woman came in to Douglas at Lucky Street Tattoo in New Bern, NC because she was concerned about the three microdermals she’d had done on her hip two days earlier in Wilmington, NC. When she showed up, what Douglas saw — to his horror — was what just looked like bug bites, with no sign whatsoever of the jewelry. You might think from the picture that it had just fallen out in the night and she ought to be searching her bed, but after examining her the truth was much more sickening and disquieting. They had sunk deep into the skin, nearly an inch into the tissue. If I had to guess, this almost certainly happened because the hack who did this isn’t good at inserting this type of piercing, and made holes that were too large to make insertion easier (not realizing the harm it would cause), resulting in the tops sinking.

As Douglas put it, “I don’t get how some hack piercer could abuse the trust of a client so much and cause so much wrong. She was in tears as I was explaining to her [what had happened]“. Anyawy, here is what he saw when she first walked in:

The good news is that Douglas didn’t have to hack her up to get them out — he was able to excise the deeply buried jewelry without having to create any new holes. Not that it be surprising, but those gem-set microdermals that the so-called piercer charged her $160 for? Those were just cheap foilback Skin Divers, a cheap variation on the microdermal that’s essentially a labret stud, which most piercers I’ve discussed it with feel is an inferior product to standard microdermals.

In the end, the client left much happier than she arrived. After removing the failed submerged Skin Divers, she returned for an appointment the next day to get three high quality Anatometal titanium anchors using 4mm flat back discs, placed on the opposite side from where the original catastrophe was done.

I was starting to get very tired of all the posts on Facebook and elsewhere complaining about low quality body artists, but I really hope that the average person understands the message — skimping on your body can easily end up costing far more in the long run, not just in terms of wasted money, but in pain and suffering and disappointment. Go to a qualified piercer for your body art.