Piercing Comments

I received this message from a reader:

Elayne, the book was amazing!  I always had a feeling that the old shop I was going to was not the cleanest or most knowledgeable place in the world, and now I am certain haha!  You have really opened my eyes to a lot of things that I just didn't look at before.  I plan on enrolling in my classes soon, and hopefully with what I learned from your book I will have a bit of a head start above my competition for an apprenticeship.  Also, your aftercare section was great.  I have heard a ton of varying viewpoints, but never any reason other than "it just works."  The piercer who did my lip told me to use anti-bacterial soap and peroxide to clean my lip ring, and now I no longer have it because it wouldn't heal.  I wish I would have found your book sooner!  It probably would have been able to keep it!

Also, I found a video on YouTube after reading your book that you might be able to use as a "how not to pierce" guide.  Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bYU4fLYIVk

Any way, thanks again for everything.  You are the best.  I am going to be far more picky when I get my septum pierced and when I look for my apprenticeship.  Thank you so very much!

Alan

My reply:

An article recently appeared in the Huffington Post with the headline: Tongue Piercings Could Lead to Severe Brain Infections. Clearly this was most unfortunate for the individuals who were described in the article (and their families), but these types of extreme complications are very rare. I penned a response and posted it to their site.

Wow! I ran across this video of a woman with lip plates drinking water. It is fascinating to see how incredibly large her piercings are stretched (both upper and lower lips). I can also see that there has been no thinning of the tissue, which often occurs when stretching is done too quickly.

It looks like drinking is a bit of a challenge, and I imagine eating is too, but I'm completely fascinated. It isn't a modification I'd want for myself, however. The little 14 gauge hole in my lip is just fine for me.

There was an article on the ABC news website about what parents permit their kids to do. It discussed matters like staying out at night, using cell phones, surfing the web--and ear piercing. Interestingly, it said that parents would let their girls get ear piercings as young as 9, and  27 percent of parents said ear-piercing is OK for girls younger than 6 – no other item scored more than 1 percent in that category. Another 20 percent say ear-piercing is appropriate between ages 6 and 11.

Knowing exactly how and where much of this early piercing takes place, I left the following comment:

Parents should know that ear piercing (while quite socially acceptable for young girls these days) is not without its own risks. Especially if the piercing is done by a gun at a kiosk or mall. According to "The Piercing Bible--The Definitive Guide to Safe Body Piercing" (Random House, May 2009):

"These gadgets were originally invented for tagging cattle and other animals, and later adapted for use on humans. The gun forces a pointy earring through the skin, which causes more tissue trauma and discomfort than the razor-sharp needle used by body piercers. The one-size post length does not “fit all” and cannot accommodate a plump earlobe or any swelling; it is certainly not long enough to be worn in a body piercing. The stud earring typically employs a butterfly-style clasp that can inhibit the healing process and increase the risk of infection by compressing the tissue, limiting circulation, and trapping secretions and bacteria."

The book then goes on to describe how disease transmission can take place:

I received this message from a Facebook friend:

The design for my website www.piercingbible.com is just about to be updated, and that's surely for the best. But, one slightly sad (but unavoidable) thing that is that my old Guestbook will be no more, and the posts will be unavailable. Some related good news is that all of my previous blog posts will still be available in the archives on the updated site. So, I've decided to make a blog post "Best of the Guestbook" to preserve some of the entries. Here we go!

The Board of Directors for the Association of Professional Piercers met at my home in the Yucatan of Mexico this week (they left yesterday). We had a very productive meeting. One important task that got accomplished is that the new brochures I wrote for the organization have been posted on the Association of Professional Piercers website. Here's the link to one on Jewelry for Initial Piercings, and the other on Jewelry for Healed Piercings. This is material that was never previously available from the APP. You can download a .pdf file of all of the available pamphlets. It is so great to have brochures in print form, too. They can be purchased from the APP office. From the APP website:

This post is about something a little bit different from what I usually write about, but I ran into a blog for an artist and was so impressed with what he had to say and the artwork that he did. It is, in fact, piercing-related artwork in pen and ceramic. Check it out here. Read what he has to say. He seems like a really cool dude! He's from South Africa and is a very talented artist. EUGENE HŐN : CERAMIC ARTIST (who is also wicked-good drawing with a ballpoint pen) says:

"Piercing evokes all sorts of emotions within us and society still frowns upon it and deplores the practice thereof. Personal expressions of this kind is a cultural phenomena associated with the individual’s need to expressive him or herself in a cultural diverse and hybrid society (globalisation) – the coming together of cultures and groupings (collisions) and their social behaviour patterns and beliefs – the creolization of cultures."