My first piercing
This is a story of a vertical labret piercing which didn't happen, but ended up with a labret piercing anyway. I remember when I first saw a vertical labret piercing on my friend Tom and on a few pictures on the internet, I though it was absolutely awesome and hadn't seen anyone in my home town with it and as I like to be seen as quite an original character I decided to try and get it done. I had wanted it for months but due to the nature of my work (part time at McDonalds to help fund my university placement) I couldn't really have it done due to food hygiene rules, after working at the same place for over a year, I figured if they didn't like it then I could just quit, my manager was fairly easy going and we got on well so I decided to just go for it.

I walked into the studio and asked for a vertical labret, they fed me some bs about not being able to do it because it was unsafe, etc. etc. so I walked out. I thought about how much I wanted the piercing, but also how this was going to be one of the only times I was going to be able to get to a piercing studio, because I didn't know the location of any others, so I decided just to go for a regular labret piercing instead. I walked back in, asked for the regular labret piercing, filled out the forms the woman handed me and walked into the studio after a short wait.

The guy inside sat me on the bench and explained all the equipment to me, he counted out everything he was going to use and laid it all out in front of me, showed me the jewelry he was going to put on once the piercing was complete and what size I would get after the piercing had healed and then we got going.

The first thing he did was swabbed my lip, he then drew a small dot on it with a pen, then showed me where it would be in the mirror and I quickly glanced and said yes.

This was a big mistake because after it was pierced I realized it was about 1mm off to one side, but its barely noticeable, I was so excited I just wanted to get it done and rushed ahead with it, so I would say always double check placement before you go ahead with the piercing.

Anyway he told me to shut my eyes as he was holding a sharp and he said he was just going to place it against my lip, he did so and then slowly pulled my lip down over the needle and I felt almost nothing. There was a very small stinging feeling and he told me he had completed the piercing and was about to slide the jewelry on, which was 1.2x10mm. He put the jewelry in, did it up and handed me a bottle of water for me to wash my mouth out with, he was very concerned as it was bleeding slightly and made sure it was completely free of blood before I left the studio. His assistant then handed me an ice lolly to eat and hold against the piercing to help with the swelling and gave me a talk about cleaning and looking after the piercing, after about 5 minutes of chat I left the shop a very happy lad with a helpful leaflet and some lotion for keeping the piercing clean.

The first meal I ate was a nightmare, I was constantly biting the stud and had to eat very slowly and in very small amounts, for the next few days my meals were all very simple and very slowly eaten so as not to catch my piercing at all, after around 3 or 4 days the swelling had gone completely, I could eat properly too and there was no pain in my lip at all.

When I first went into work they asked me to take it out but I politely explained I was unable to until it had healed, they were fine with that and just had me working where I wasn't in contact with any food. Whenever they asked me when I was able to take it out even after it was completely healed I just said "it still needs a week or so" and by the next week they had forgotten they had even asked me, so if you're reading this worried about your boss at work going nuts because you have a piercing, just lie to them and they're usually stupid enough to forget they asked you about 15 minutes later.

Over 3 months on and I've just had my second piercing, from a different studio, which I had slightly worse experiences with. I may write about these on another occasion. All in all this first one was a very pleasurable experience and definitely helped with my confidence in piercings, I think after my 2nd lip one has healed I'm going to have a 3rd, then I'm going to start stretching my ears to around 8mm.