Self Piercings

I was talking with Brittany about piercings. I think I want to buy a shit-ton of sterile needles and experiment on myself.

I have my lobes pretty well finished as far as piercings go (one more on my left, one more on my right) so I was looking up the many many tutorials on piercing your own cartilage (I'm wanting the lower cartilage on my right done, and outer conch on my left. Possibly a Helix if those go well, since it looks a bit more complicated.) and I'm surprised how stupid some people are.

You can't sterilize a safety pin. Maybe a sewing needle (and that's a big maybe, it's still not surgical quality metals.) In fact, you should use a needle like that to begin with, you want one that is hollow in the center. Sterile, hollow centered piercing needles are like $2 at most online. I pierced my lobe with a safety pin once, and it got really nasty, so when it finally healed it had built up a nasty little lump of scar tissue. You don't fucking want that. I took it out completely and let it heal, and let me tell you, re-piercing it was painful as fuck. Scar tissue is not your friend.

Then, I finally got along to gauging it, and because the scar tissue doesn't stretch, the quality of the gauge in that ear is pretty shitty, and it tore a few times, which you really don't want because it ends in more scar tissue. That inevitably leads to more pain and more tear and even more shitty scar tissue if you gauge up again (which I plan to. See how I fucked future self by using that safety pin?)

But anyway. My only fear with the cartilage is getting the bubble from it. I'm not too concerned with shattering my cartilage, honestly, because I'll be using a hollow needle and not a gun, but to this day, I've yet to receive a consistent answer for what it is. If you don't know what it is, you can't prevent it, or treat it when it happens. I'm not a big fan of the unknown when it comes to my body.

I guess I'll be researching more. Maybe I'll end up going to a parlor for a tattoo or something and end up asking them then. Hopefully I get the needles with my next check (I have a lot of bills that will probably go on that check, and will be starting my new phone plan with it and the money I've saved up) so I'll keep you updated on how that pans out. If it ends well enough, I'll try for piercing other things (on other people, for free.)

XoXo
a now aspiring body piercer. Thanks Brit :p