I mean, I assume they are, because I don’t own any diamonds. Maybe one day someone will gift me diamond earrings for no reason at all, who knows.
So I had to go and get some registration documents renewed recently, and they made me remove all my earrings for the photo. I tried to negotiate with the officer, but he wasn’t having it. I couldn’t remove them all with my own bare hands, so I had to book an appointment with my piercer to take them all out with proper tools before returning. After the photo was taken, I went back to her again to have all my earrings put back in.
I kept everything on my right ear exactly as they were originally located (pictured above), but when we got to my left ear, I decided to switch things up a little. I changed out the green stud in my helix to a simple silver hoop, and the black hoop in my lower lobe to a silver hoop with a dangle attachment. I thought about changing out my conch as well to a hoop, but I figured I had enough hoops in that ear and that keeping the round crystal stud makes it more visually interesting as a whole.
My left ear absolutely made a fuss when I decided to ask the piercer to insert a curved hoop earring into my helix piercing instead of a straight labret stud, which was what had been happily sitting in it for the last year. There was a lot of bleeding, and a lot of owwwing on my part. It actually felt equivalent to the pain of being pierced all over again; it was not the painless act I had imagined sliding an earring through a healed fistula to be. That explains the dried blood around the piercing site… that was after cleaning up. My ear was so red, I had to slap a brightening filter over the picture just to even out the red hues. Anyway, I’m happy with the jewellery refresh.
I dug through my old piercing records to come up with the list of ear piercings below. I can’t find the exact details of all of them, but I’ll include what I was able to find.
Left Ear
1st (bottom) lobe piercing – 16 gauge 8mm SGSS hinged segment ring with attachment (The Teardrop Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal Prong set Titanium ornament, ASTM F136 surgical grade titanium)
2nd (middle) lobe piercing – ….my white gold earring from a $100 pair fell out at some point a few weeks ago and I never bothered to put anything in its place. When I tried to reinsert jewellery a few weeks later, I found it had closed up. Oh, well. I never cared for that earring anyway, I bought it on impulse many years back and never felt like it was as big or shiny as I would have liked (it looked dazzling under the showroom lighting, less spectacular when I looked in the mirror at home)
3rd (upper) lobe piercing – SGSS hinged segment ring, dimensions unclear
Conch piercing – Crystal stud, internally threaded, dimensions unclear
Helix piercing – SGSS hinged segment ring, dimensions unclear
Flat piercing – diamond dangle stud earring, internally threaded, dimensions unclear
Number of existing piercings on left ear: 6
Right Ear
1st (bottom) lobe piercing – 5mm Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal labret SGSS 14 gauge 7mm internally threaded
2nd (middle) lobe piercing – 4mm Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal labret SGSS 16 gauge 10mm internally threaded
3rd (upper) lobe piercing – 3mm Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal labret SGSS 16 gauge 10mm internally threaded
Lower helix piercing – The Elegance Side Facing Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal Hinged Segment Ring with 4mm Baguette Cut Clear Cubic Zirconia Crystal ASTM F136 SG Titanium, micropaved inset crystals, 16 gauge 8mm
Mid-helix piercing – SGSS hinged segment ring, dimensions unclear
Upper helix piercing – aurora borealis stud, internally threaded, dimensions unclear
Rook piercing – threadless curved barbell with Swarovski gems, dimensions unclear
Number of existing piercings on right ear: 7
My general ear piercing experience, condensed into random/miscellaneous points:
- I wanted to get a tragus piercing as well, but apparently my tragus doesn’t have enough surface area for a piercing. I also considered a daith ring at some point, but since I wear headphones and earphones a lot, it seemed like it would get annoying and just get irritated all the time.
- I’ve had two or three piercings done in the same sitting a couple of times. I think the adrenaline after the first piercing helped me to get through the second and third piercings.
- The most painful ear piercing I got was my rook, hands down, no contest. The loud crunch of the needle breaking through the cartilage wasn’t even the worst part, it was the pain. I’d rate it an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale? As far as ear piercings go. The conch piercing is a close second. It didn’t make my toes burst out through my shoes like the rook piercing did, but man, it was spicy.
- I’ve found that lobe piercings didn’t necessarily hurt less than helix piercings as is often touted, they were actually pretty comparable in my experience.
- Incidentally, my lobe piercings gave me more trouble during healing than the others. People often complain about their bodies rejecting their rook/cartilage piercings, whereas my rook piercing healed like a charm (since it was tucked inside my ear out of the way of my hair and I don’t sleep directly on it) and my lobes were problem children that still give me mild problems years after piercing (like secreting discharge and lymph fluid, especially if the earring gets caught on my hair and things like that)
- My first few ear piercings were gun piercings. You know, with the butterfly backs. I mean, it was the early 2000s, you get it. I had triple lobe piercings done with guns in high school (all of them closed up when I took them out, which is why there are so many closed-up piercing sites along my lobes), and two helix piercings also done with a gun in uni. However, before my appendicectomy surgery, the nurse made me remove all my earrings. I tried to put them back in after 1 week post-surgery, but the holes had closed up almost entirely by then. It was only many years later on that I had my helix re-pierced but this time with needles.
- My conch was actually pierced twice. The first time I pierced it, I decided to not follow the advice I was given, and after just one month, I changed my starter jewellery (a stud labret) to a thin hoop I had bought online, because I was just so excited to have a conch ring instead of a stud. It ended up getting the worst irritation bump, especially after I slept on that side, to the point where I had to remove it altogether. The bump was huge and just so uncomfortable. I learnt my lesson, for sure. The second time I had it re-pierced, I chose a stud I really liked so that I wouldn’t have the urge to change it out anytime soon after piercing. I’ve mostly left it alone, except for when I had to have it removed for a photo session as mentioned.
I think that’s the long and short of it…I haven’t even got started on my body piercings (that still earn me stares from airport officials after I go through the body scanner), but maybe that’s another story for another day. 😉
*all photos courtesy of Piercetology Studio