My trend of making drastic changes started, predictably, after the demise of a relationship. I decided to cut my hair, like probably every other girl who’s gone through a breakup. I had been the girl with hair down to her butt, who hadn’t gotten a haircut in who knows how long; to those who knew me my new “lob” was a drastic change.
I never regretted that decision. It’s hard to describe how happy the change made me, but I felt content, lighthearted, and pretty stylish too. The feeling was addictive. I tried to capture it again by cutting my hair to a similar length (once it had grown out a bit), but it didn’t feel like enough. Then, I dyed my hair blonde. Once again, I felt that crazily happy feeling, and honestly, I’m still riding that high. But with a new school year, I wanted to keep it up, so my friend and I decided to get our noses pierced.
I should clarify that this is not a decision that was completely spontaneous, nor do I think it should be. We had both been thinking about it since early last spring semester, but due to my lack of funds and her lack of parental approval we decided to wait it out. When we did finally decide to bite the bullet, we researched and looked for good reviews and clean facilities. We narrowed it down to three potential places and set off this past weekend.
Our first place was waiting on supplies that wouldn’t be in until next week, so we went to Village Tattoo Parlor for our piercings. They were very friendly and professional. We were given a list and had to check off whether we had any allergies, whether we drank in the last eight hours, among other questions. Any concerns we had (and my friend had a lot) were reassuringly answered. I was quite happy when they offered us candy before and after the procedure, as sometimes my blood sugar can get low.
My only complaint was that the piercing area was a little bit small, but Yolanda, our piercer, took us through the entire process, showing us the disinfected and new materials as well as putting us at ease with her jokes. She explained to my friend, who is a vegetarian, that she would bleed more than I would because there would be less iron in her body, not something that I had ever thought about but definitely a good warning. We both felt we were in great hands, and though I was not as nervous as my friend, I felt even more confident in my decision.
My friend went first because she wanted to get it over with, and, if anything could have made me not want to go through with the piercing, it would have been watching it happen. I purposefully avoided videos online while my friend had decided to watch a few, and Yolanda told us watching them was usually not a good idea. I would say it’s just a bit nauseating to see a large metal needle poking out of your friend’s face. After coming all the way downtown, however, I was not about to chicken out. It did help when my friend told me it was not nearly as bad as she expected.
I would agree with that statement; it did not hurt as much as I thought it would. I would rank it as maybe a 5.5 or 6 out of 10. What hurt the most was probably when she cleaned some of the blood away (yes, there will be blood even if you are not a vegetarian/vegan) and the initial forty minutes of tenderness after the procedure.
Piercing your nose is definitely a commitment and it should not be treated lightly. After we went back into the main room, we were given paper with detailed instructions on how to clean our piercings (we used a soap two times a day and a spray three times a day). The owners of the parlor made sure we knew that the piercings take 20 weeks to fully heal, and stressed that cleaning needed to be done every day. Personally, I could not be more satisfied with my experience; it was safe, professional and gave me that exhilarated feeling I was after.
Now, all I have to do is keep up with my cleaning and mull over what I’ll try next.