Hi, I'm Jessie Marie

[Hardware]

Hi, my name is Jessie. I'm a 28 year old female that travels between Minnesota and New York on a semi regular basis. I am a professional body piercer and I also work retail. I have 34 body piercing total (28 visible), a '3rd eye' dermal and around 90 hours worth of tattoo work on my body.

I have several stretched body piercings. In my ears I currently have 5/8" earlobes (base) along with 2G, 4G and a 6G Helix. Others include a 4G Tongue, 6G Septum, 4G Navel and 10G Nipples. So if you ever have a question regarding stretching more than just your ears, let me know.

[Nic]

lol hi Jessie! Dang, sounds like u been doin this stuff for a while.
I was actually wondering about tongue stretching, cuz i was thinking about gettin my tongue pierced for the purpose of stretching it. Any advice?

[Hardware]

First, you need to make sure you are capable of getting a tongue piercing, some people have extended webbing on the bottom of their tongue. If this is the case, a tongue piercing is not advised, you will only end up busting your teeth off. If you want a the piercing bad enough, go to a doctor to have it cut. DON'T have a piercer to it. It is a medical procedure that requires crucial aftercare as well as antibiotics.

When I had my tongue pierced, it was done with a 12 Gauge needle. It was after about 8 months that I bought a 10 Gauge barbell and it slid in fine on its own. In MY personal experience, I never required a taper to stretch it. I would simply buy the next size up and periodically see if the next size up would slide in. I would move the barbell around a lot, pushing it against the insides of my mouth (NOT against the teeth!) It took a lot of time and patience, which is important to stretching a piercing properly. Going from 8g to 6G took about 9 months until it went through on its own.

Your body will tell you when it wont stretch any further, and you also need to be able to make your own judgment calls. Periodically I still try to insert a 2G barbell, but my tongue says "No way!". I used a taper one day to see where the resistance was coming from, it was coming from the bottom half of course. That tells me right there that I am not to force it.

Also, having a 4 gauge barbell in your mouth can be a mouthful (haha). I have 10mm ends and the bar is 1/2" long, the piece itself is made of surgical steel. It is important that you have an appropriate length barbell for your tongue. If its too loose fitting in the tongue you run a high risk of biting on it, or it cracking the enamel on your teeth. The risk get higher with the larger sizes so don't make a habit out of playing with it (sticking it out, clicking it against the teeth. Stuff like that). Dental bills are expensive, I have had to get my front teeth fixed because I accidentally cracked them against the barbell.

Like all stretching, it takes a lot less time and effort to create damage than it is to fix it. So take your time and be patient. Good things are worth waiting for and pay off in the end

[linz86]

okay i'm jealous......why? your a professional body piercer! and 34 piercings...nice

[Tom]

Hey Jesse! Welcome to the forum

34 piercings! damm..Looking forward to hearing from you on the forums

[Nic]

haha thx for the advice =D . i hope i dont have to get anything cut to be able to pierce it. I actually have the money to go to a legit piercer cuz this is one i dont wana do myself.

[Hardware]

Oh dear god, no. Do NOT pierce your tongue yourself!! haha!!

[brutalSKITTLES]

Wow, you sound like you know alot! Being a professional body piercer would be totaly badass! Jw why did you decide you wanted to be one? &what did it take to become a body piercer? &I was wondering about stretching my septum, iv done it before &stretched it to i think 6g but it hurt realy bad so i took it out for a couple days and just let it close (cause i had pierced it myself and listend to dumasses who didn't know anything bout stretching) I have been thinking about getting it professionally pierced then re stretching it, how should i go about doing that? (sorry bout all the questions) :p

[Hardware]

Well, I kinda just *knew* as random as that is. At the age of 9 I had my first tattoo figured out, 11 years later I finally started it. The tattoo was a large piece on my back of skeletal angel wings. I had the piece completely paid for and the artist was really good at what he did. Getting appointments with him was hard, so I often hung out at the shop waiting for no shows. I became friends with everyone there and often helped out with the cleaning. A piercing apprenticeship was unavoidable by this point, haha. Long story short, after a year, 30 hours of tattoo work and halfway through my apprenticeship my back was finally finished.
Getting an apprenticeship can be difficult. You need to do your homework and make sure you get into a good shop (clean, friendly, professional), it is also a lot of hard work. I basically ran the shop where I apprenticed. First to arrive, last to leave. Cleaning EVERYTHING (windows, carpets, tattoo/piercing stations, tubes), answering phones, making appointments, customer service, ordering supplies, customer paperwork, sterilizing tubes and piercing equipment, driving to the store for supplies and food for the artists, setting up for the artists and cleaning up their stations when they are finished. I was always moving. It's nothing like what you see on t.v, although, there is a lot of drama in shops. Also, some shops will make you pay for an apprenticeship (in the thousand dollar mark sometime), and if you don't work your tail off or supplies run out on your watch, you are gone, no refunds. Becoming a piercer took EVERYTHING I had in me physically and mentally. I had to move back in with my parents! I could go on and on about my apprenticeship, it took a lot of hard work but in the end it paid off!

Septum piercings are one of the hardest piercings to get straight because the body is naturally not symmetrical. Plus some people just have weird noses. So yes, get it professionally done!

Stretching a septum is a lot different from stretching an earlobe. Septum piercings are done in the tip of the nose near cartilage, so you need to be careful. You should take it Very, Very slow. I personally advise 2-4 months between stretching at the very minimum. During this time it is important to do Sea Salt Soaks... and I do solely advise sea salt for septum piercings (5 minutes, twice a day).
As far as what to use to stretch it, I advise surgical steel crescents, not a straight taper. The surgical steel is important because, I'm sure you can imagine what kind of things manifest in your nose, using steel will prevent bacteria from gestating on the jewelry the way it will with acrylic, plus the jewelry is just easier to clean. Use O rings from a smaller size than what you are stretching to, you do not want the O rings too tight against the area. Ingrown O rings suck and you need to make sure the stretched area is actually getting cleaned and it needs to breathe. After soaking, use a Q-tip to remove any build up crusties and give the entire nose a proper cleaning. If you don't, the smell is horrific and you smell it all the time!

Same rules apply as always. Listen to your body. You will know when enough is enough. The largest I had in my septum was a 4 Gauge, and it was not pretty. Literally, I had to choose between being a Mod or a girl. It took up my whole face! I let it close up a bit, I can wear a 6 just fine, but I choose to wear a 10. So don't get carried away with going bigger just to go big, get to a size that looks good on you!

[vdub]

Good advice.

A personal philosophy of mine is that no accessory should be too eye catching. If people are looking at your jewelry first and your face second, you've gone too far. Unless of course, that's what you want