A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

To show teeth or not to show teeth

Everybody has seen fun pictures of people showing off their teeth through the holes of immense labrets. Now, that’s a great goofy trick if you’re happy with your megalabret and are pleased to pop it back in after the gag photo is snapped, but it’s not so great if you wish you didn’t have that gaping hole in your lip. To refresh your memory as to what I’m talking about, here’s a funny picture of Jared Karnes showing what he does “when people are already being overly dramatic about it” — although most of the time if he’s not wearing jewelry you can barely see the hole, as you can see from the subtle slit on the left side of the image.

labret-showoff

Luckily closing these big labrets is not a complex matter as long as the lip has not been stretched dramatically (which would make it more like the reconstruction of a stretched lobe and would almost certainly require a complicated surgery). Here’s one done by Roni Lachowicz, showing the “before” photo, a picture a week later after the stitches were removed, and a fully healed photo a few months later. Since many people naturally have a scar in that location without ever having had a piercing (can someone explain to me why?), it’s unlikely to make much of an impression, especially if hidden under facial hair. Zoom it of course (and most of the other images too).

labret-closure

Speaking of Roni, it’s been a little while since I’ve posted one of the industry’s most striking individuals, so let me give you some eye candy. If memory serves, her eye tattoos are self done, which always impresses the hell out of me. Which reminds me that I should mention that my eye hurts a lot today. I have a bad headache, brought on by central apnea most likely, but it’s manifesting with a great deal of eye pain. I don’t know if it’s real or psychosomatic, but it’s something worth being aware of — real or not, people considering eye tattoos should be aware that even five years later, it can still ache badly from time to time!

xronix-1t xronix-2t

And finally — and I know I have really started to drift away from my original subject — I wanted to share one more piece of Roni’s recent work, a great looking tiny little star implant on the flat of the ear. It’s about two weeks old in this photo, so you can see a bit of dry skin over the incision. If this picture was taken even a few days later, you’d have no idea how this implant was inserted, because the incision is so nicely tucked underneath the fold of the helix.

ear-implant-xronix

Comments

8 responses to “To show teeth or not to show teeth”

  1. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    Shannon, I always thought that people have a scar there because at some point, they fell on their faces and punched through their lip with their teeth. not sure if that makes sense though 😉

  2. torels Avatar
    torels

    the “scar” is probably due to the skin being forced to make a wrinkle which eventually grows deeper and looks like a scar
    It’s just a supposition though.
    Something similar happened to me after a long time with a bulky teeth brace. As a side effect of being so bulky it forced my tongue to be folded in a V-like shape. I now have a fairly deep slit running along the center of my tongue which wasn’t there before and that is probably permanent (i’ve took the brace out 7 or 8 years ago and the slit is still there)

  3. Sinquisition Avatar
    Sinquisition

    ….She is so beautiful.

  4. Indigo Avatar
    Indigo

    I have a scar there for exactly the reason that Linda mentioned – when I was a toddler, I climbed onto the counter, fell off, and a bottom tooth went right through under my lip. Makes sense, how easily it happens – baby teeth are pretty sharp, and the skin and tissue of infants and toddlers is damaged – and can heal – much more quickly than that of an adult.

  5. Nixiie Avatar

    i’m with Sinquisition. Roni is stunning.

  6. mutumbo Avatar
    mutumbo

    As Indigo and Linda said, the scar is from getting hit in the face and the teeth going through the lower lip.

  7. hm Avatar
    hm

    does Roni have an account in facebook or somewhere…I would love to see more protos of that beautiful person.

  8. Erik Avatar

    I had to take out my beloved 12mm labret because of a huge gum recession… I freaking loved that one, it was the only piercing I did alone, stretching during 3 years… and now I see the gums of the fella in the first post through the hole, completely healthy… I wonder what did I do wrong.

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