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. Anything is possible.
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 chose to have a curved hoop earring inserted 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 owwing 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 think the teardrop and the hoop make a simple but very pretty combination.
I dug through my old piercing records to come up with the list below. I can’t find the exact details of everything, but I’ll include what I could 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 rush after the first piercing helped me to get through the second and third piercings.
- The most painful ear piercing I had was my rook, hands down, no contest. The loud crunch of the needle breaking through the cartilage wasn’t even the worst part when compared to the toe-curling 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. I’d say it’s a tier below the rook in terms of pain, but still pretty spicy.
- I’ve found that lobe piercings didn’t necessarily hurt less than helix piercings as is often the case with others, 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 experiencing rejection/migration with their cartilage piercings, but in my case 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 I forgot it even existed after a few days; my lobes were the problem children that still give me mild problems years after piercing (I still deal with discharge and lymph fluid from my lobes: not so much from my cartilage piercings).
- 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 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 didn’t exactly 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 and didn’t want to wait one or two years to make the switch. I ended up getting the worst irritation bump behind my ear, especially after sleeping on that side, to the point where I had to remove the conch hoop altogether because the bump just wouldn’t heal. It 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 the 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 those are stories for another day. 😉
*all photos courtesy of Piercetology Studio