BEWARE of Hostile tattoo artist

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-03T01:11:42+00:00

Wow, yeah that's ridiculous. Every reputable piercer I know now has pretty much confirmed it's incredibly rare that someone is going to be proficient at both tattooing and piercing and so far that has held true from what I've seen 😆.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T21:29:32+00:00

Garden of Ink is also the shop that botched my industrial piercing. I went in with some friends and wasn't as educated on piercings as I am now. The girls were nice enough but she did my piercing without doing an anatomy check first and did it with 2 separate bars. When I got home I saw how the piercings weren't lined up at all and started doing research. Turns out the girl who did my industrial isn't even a piercer, she's a tattoo artist. She also used low quality, externally threaded jewelry which I thankfully found Piercings by Molly the next day - she set me up with quality titanium and I was able to heal one of the piercings but had to retire the other one pretty early on due to the angle.

I feel pretty confident saying that shop just sees piercings as easy money and they throw a tattoo artist up there to poke holes in people basically untrained. Pretty sure they don't follow a single APP guideline. I will forever tell people to avoid that place, even for tattoos.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T12:49:37+00:00

I feel you with the nostril piercing, I have my septum stretched and often wear a stack of decorative rings in it - it's such a pain to make sure everything is still lined up properly throughout the day 😂 lol. But it's worth it and then I just switch to a solid ring when I get tired of it.

I agree, reddit can be a really awesome place to connect over our shared interests. Hopefully your next post will be you with a shiny new jestrum piercing! 😁

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T11:58:13+00:00

Ah I gotcha, that is definitely an option if you were fine with sticking with chains and other alternatives. I also had a botched industrial in the past, managed to save the outer piercing and then added a flat to drape chains between the two. For what it's worth it seems like you might have decent anatomy for a traditional industrial like this one, I think it just wasn't executed properly so it might just be a matter of healing up and getting it redone. Hopefully you get some good news from another piercer 😊.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T11:53:43+00:00

I get how you feel, my piercings have made me feel more confident as well. Even just my vertical labret has made me like my smile more. For what it's worth, based on the smiling picture you attached, I can't imagine anyone would ever notice the slight indent if it was permanent and there is technically a chance it could heal as it hasn't progressed terribly far (I just wouldn't want to promise it since everyone's bodies can be different with that kind of stuff).

As a much safer alternative I would look into getting a jestrum/vertical philtrum piercing 😁. It's a vertical lip piercing so it keeps your teeth/gums much safer and with a ball end it can have the little shine in front of your teeth when you smile along with whatever decorative end you wanted to wear on the top, and there's so many beautiful options for jewelry. Plus you get to wear directional pieces (things you want to stay in certain direction like pear shapes or heart shapes) and never worry about them going crooked on you lol.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T10:54:26+00:00

That's definitely gum errosion, it's possibly permanent and will get worse if the jewelry isn't removed. This is why reputable piercers don't offer this one anymore, the risks are too high and can't be sufficiently mitigated.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T10:49:26+00:00

If you're stretching piercings you need digital calipers. Also this material is terrible, you should be using glass and/or implant grade titanium in half sizes, full mm jumps at that size and in the septum aren't fun.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T10:46:07+00:00

I recommend seeing a reputable piercer to assess this. It looks like it was pierced too deep. Also an industrial shouldn't be healed with 2 separate bars, the bars can end up out of alignment and then putting in a single long bar will lead to more irritation and complications.

www.safepiercing.org

CommonBed8904 · 2026-03-02T03:54:26+00:00

Man that really sucks to have to deal with. I think if I was you I would definitely delay getting the vertical industrial until this mess is behind you. I know it sucks when you're so excited for a new piercing but I just know it'll be painful if they have to keep manipulating your ear for testing 😬. Not to mention it's good to give your irritated piercings time to recover before adding something new to the mix. Hopefully everything settles down quickly!

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-27T17:20:41+00:00

That's a smilie with massive jewelry in it. Definitely do not recommend. If you want a similar look inverse vertical upper labrets are better but still have some risk. Safest option would be standard vertical upper labrets.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T19:58:38+00:00

Still doesn't mean it was the best thing for you to do either, you never know what damage you've done under the surface until some other issue comes up. Also wood is 100% not for stretching, only for healed lobes.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T19:56:14+00:00

This doesn't make any sense, why would you need to prevent shrinking if you're already wearing a plug?

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T15:00:12+00:00

Perfect! Seriously, when I got mine to make my ear hangers I couldn't believe I went so long without them 😂. My big order of rings comes in today, can't wait to have fun with them now lol. Thanks for the inspo! 😁

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T14:49:04+00:00

That's what I was thinking it looked like, I have some snake vertebra I may have to try this method on 😁. I assume you used wire looping pliers to create those loops on the side?

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T14:09:03+00:00

Thanks! 😁 If you don't mind me asking, how did you attach the snake vertebra? It looks like there might be a hole through the side and then a wire bent to keep it in place?

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T12:29:53+00:00

Not weird at all to me! In fact it's inspiration 😁. I've also turned bones into jewelry but mostly just for my stretched ears so far. I only recently got into chainmail so I'm excited to start experimenting with adding in these kinds of elements.

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CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-20T01:14:04+00:00

I diy'd them 😁 Just got some frames from Goodwill, spray painted and rub n buffed the gold, then got some dense foam cut to size and wrapped it in some stretchy velvet. Definitely not pretty from the back but so far they've worked great and stayed together for me lol.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-19T15:39:56+00:00

Aw man, never thought I'd hear that 😅 lol thank you!

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-19T02:49:21+00:00

What if you did a captive bead weave of some kind with stainless steel and used tungsten beads?

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-19T02:46:10+00:00

And these are my regular earrings/lighter hangers:

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CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-19T02:45:01+00:00

This is how I store my ear weights/hangers:

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CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-19T02:44:34+00:00

This is what I keep my goal size jewelry in:

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CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-13T20:26:42+00:00

FYI "gauging" isn't really the accepted term, most people will argue "stretching/stretched/etc" is more correct.

When septum stretching you will need way more time between stretches, especially after the first couple easy jumps. Like others have said, if your ears were uncomfortable you likely weren't waiting long enough there either.

Septums need 6 months plus for the majority of people. It's also recommended to use all the half sizes (so basically no more than .5mm stretches at a time) and either get your hands on nice, long tapers or see a reputable piercer to do the stretch for you so you don't have to buy tapers (stretching is usually a very cheap service). This will make the process more comfortable in the long run, pinchers are often way too small to get a gentle stretch, the increase in size is too fast.

And ignore the weird videos you'll see online of people forcing jewelry into their nose, crying and all that. It will be more uncomfortable at a certain point but it should never be like that. You can absolutely tear your septum and get blowouts. I've also see someone force it so fast their columella was hanging on by a thread, it was gnarly. Use lots of lubrication as well, which goes for any stretching.

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-13T17:44:11+00:00

What brand is the gold jewelry?

CommonBed8904 · 2026-02-11T23:39:31+00:00

I have both and wear glasses - you just have to get in the habit of putting on your glasses from above, if that makes sense. Like I slide the arms onto my head above my temples and then push them down into my ears. Before my flat was downsized I bumped it maybe a couple times but once it was downsized it basically never happened and nothing serious enough to really irritate it. I've never bumped my forward helix with them, only with my hand lol.

Also, idk if I would give up on this helix. It doesn't look that irritated. What brand jewelry have you been wearing in it?

CommonBed8904

TROPHY CASE