People are always asking me, “Is this gonna hurt?”
“What’s it feel like?”
You know what I tell them?
Shhh.
It’s pain.
Life is painful.
My name is Andrea and I’m getting a rook piercing today.
I know that it’s said that this is the new beauty trend in LA, especially in LA it’s
been pretty popular, but I think it’s been around since the ‘90s.
A rook is this part of your ear, right here, this fold.
It’s one of my favorites.
I love decorating the ears.
I feel like they were meant to be decorated.
They need it, they want it.
They were put there to hang jewelry off of.
My name is Brian Keith Thompson, I’m the owner and chief piercer at Body Electric Tattoo
in Los Angeles, California.
Body Electric, I was a client there.
I had recently got out of prison.
Yes, prison.
And I needed to get some cover up tattoos.
The owner at the time made me go into the mirror and pierce my nose myself, and I did it.
I’m a sucker for a dare.
And it changed something in me.
The better I got at it, the more I loved it.
The more I loved it, the better I got at it.
I’ve wanted cartilage piercings on my ears for so, so long.
One of the reasons I’ve definitely been worried about getting the cartilage piercings
is cause I hear that you can’t really sleep on them and it’s really hard.
And I toss and turn all the time throughout my sleep.
And I heard with the rook you can sleep on it right afterwards because it’s right in
between your ear.
I don’t do every type of piercing.
I turn people down, at least once a week.
I had an eight year old come in who wanted her navel pierced with her mom, I just was
not gonna do that.
I don’t pierce the tongue.
I don’t want to touch anybody’s tongue, and I feel it’s very negative on the mouth.
People call me an artist.
I am not an artist.
I am a stylist, I am a decorator.
That’s what I do.
I mentally prepare for getting piercings done by kind of just pretending it’s not gonna happen.
Until the needle’s right next to me.
I mean, I’m definitely not super excited to be stabbed by these needles today but
I mean why not, right?
You’re gonna see a glass receiving tube.
I like the glass because I can see the needle exit the bottom of the rook.
You're seeing small, minute changes right before the piercing of me determining angle and depth.
When I execute I apply pressure to the needle.
It pierces through the part of the ear.
I maintain constant pressure and fluid movements as I’m piercing to limit trauma and pain to the client.
It happens in a split second.
Voila.
A freshly pierced rook.
My method is basically taking each client and trying to make it unique.
If they give me that freedom to do actually what I want, usually it comes out much better.
I noticed that she was wearing things in her lobes.
I didn’t feel like it fit her well.
Whatever that was, that star thingy.
So we tossed those out and then moved the diamond studs down, put some gold hoops behind
that on the second piercing.
So today I was just going to get the rook piercing and then I got there and ended up getting three because
he convinced me.
Andrea let me perform the constellation piercing.
What a constellation piercing is is a multitude of piercings sporadic on your ear with no
rhyme or reason why they should be there.
I've gotten a lot of attention for it, but it's just something I've embraced.
If you’re getting multiple piercings, know that the first one is gonna hurt less then
second one, second one’s gonna to hurt more, third one’s gonna hurt more.
That one hurt more, you lied.
So the more you hurt yourself, the more your body sends that pain to your brain to get you to what?
Stop hurting yourself.
I did a 2.5 mil disc in her conch.
And I did a tiny 1.5 millimeter diamond on her upper lobe.
My initial reaction was that it looked badass to be totally honest.
Changing the jewelry in your ear can absolutely transform somebody’s style.
I tell people all the time, a tattoo is a marriage, a piercing is a mistress.
I was a little nervous, definitely, about getting stabbed three times, but it ended
up like not being as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Brian was amazing.
He’s obviously super professional and had no problem telling me that he hated everything
that I had and was like, “You need to do this.”
The aftercare, the actual healing process can take months and it can be quite painful.
One of the number one causes of problems associated with getting a piercing is the clients playing,
touching, twisting and turning the jewelry.
Less care is best care, I tell all my clients.
What I prefer to use is a castile soap from Dr. Bronner’s, massaging the soap gently
around the piercing area, and then rinsing it completely off.
After 12 years of piercing I still love to pierce is because every day is different.
Every client is unique, they’re different personalities, their ear shape, their anatomy, every day is a challenge.
It’s different.
It’s fun.
At the moment, it really doesn’t hurt but I know that it’s going to at some point.
I think my ear is just in shock, but right now I kind of feel like a boss ass bitch now.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
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