Trend: Curated Ear

"Curated" ear, "constellation" piercings, or whatever buzzword they are going by these days is the trend of getting a bunch of piercings throughout the ear. It's different from the "ear projects" of old because it's more mainstream. "Ear projects" often had custom jewelry and industrials and stretched lobes/cartilage, whatever. It was meant to be extreme:

Completed Gold, Red, Black Look

Medieval/Fantasy Looks

You may or may not know it, but we are in a golden age of sword and sorcery fiction. Every fantasy book I pick up has amazing badass women who fight alongside men. They're not just love interests or prizes, they're bandits, fighters, powerful antagonists, and main characters. I remember giving up the search for female knights when I was growing up...It was pretty much only The Hero and the Crown.

So it's no surprise that "Medieval goth" when I was younger was similar to the first search result you get when you type that in Google image search:

still awesome by the way

Red Ink Tattoos/Henna

Uh yeah, so I keep writing about getting a tattoo (I have none). I've been loving red ink tattoos for some time now. I think they'd go great with my skin tone, and I like the idea of my skin looking like it's been through recent scarification. I like the idea of having a "bloody" looking design.

sorry. don't know the name of the artist.

Not sure how I feel about these

Red and Gold weeks

The past two weeks have been strange at work since my group was folded into a larger group. I'm in a new bigger department...my job's still the same but the work that my lean team of 3 is now being done by like 15 people. The levels of bureaucracy are amazing. I inherited an assistant and I now attend meetings with the other managers, so I'm suddenly very visible. To introduce myself to the group, I've been wearing a flashy combination of red and gold (lol and participating in the meetings). It's easy to disappear in a corporate setting. For better or for worse, I've chosen not to.  

For one thing, I now wear my septum, which I've never worn to the office. The hoop earrings are ridiculously flashy and cheap looking, but I like em.

Ear stretching

So this post will cover my personal stretching experience. I've only stretched my ear lobes. I've also had little problems doing it. My current size is 4g (5mm) and 8g (3mm).

Industrial Piercings

Since posting my recent industrial earring haul, I thought I'd share my experience about getting this piercing done. In the UK/Australia, apparently this piercing isn't called an industrial, it's called a scaffold piercing.

I've got a traditional shape

Industrial bar earring haul

moooon

What's in my piercings?

Thought I'd do a quick post before I head to the eye doctor. I broke all of my glasses and now need a new ones and a new prescription. I'm pretty happy with what I'm wearing in my ears right now and wanted to share:

Left ear:

ugh my hair is growing out...

Pierced Septums @ Fashion Week

Well, seems another one of my 2014 trend predictions is coming true. I've been noticing more pierced septums popping up in my WWD Fashion Week (NYC, Paris, London, Milan) Tumblr feed. I'm not pissed it's going more mainstream...since more jewelry options are sure to follow!

Milan Fashion Week (street photo)

Paris Fashion Week (street photo)

Ethnic-inspired Septum Jewelry

I'm deciding to forgo my vow of only wearing pincers in my septum (pierced earlier this year) and saw these vaguely ethnic Tawapa septum clickers on sale at various sites:

I'm categorizing this as "cool, but not for me," especially when I saw that some of these were almost TWO INCHES long. What would that even look like?

Septum

So back on 8/2, I finally didn't chicken out and went ahead and got my septum pierced (12g, with a retainer) at Pure Body Arts at Sacred Tattoo in NYC. It's one of the best piercing places in the country, and they do some pretty heavy mods there. Chris did my piercing. He had a great bedside manner and was completely professional--also the poor guy was hit by a car not too long ago and was limping around.

RIP labret

Ok guys, two more piercing-related posts and I'm done with what's now body-mod month. Just this one and the one on my septum (forthcoming!)

So, today I unceremoniously got rid of my lip ring/labret. I woke up at 6am, about an hour before I was supposed to wake up for work, and finally had enough and just yanked it out and put it on the nightstand. I went back to sleep and when I woke up, the hole was pretty much closed up.

Seriously, no regrets about that. I've been wanting to get rid of this thing for a while.... 

Trending Body Mods

So I've been talking to tattoo artists and piercers the last few weeks and I've been asking all of them, "What are the hot new tattoos (or piercings) that everyone is getting these days?" I'm not going to attribute these to anyone...so you'll have to just trust me here.

Top Tattoo: 

words on your ribs

This was pretty unanimous. Every artist or receptionist told me this is what all the kids are getting these days. Other notables: words on the side of the hand, feathers, owls, the infinity symbol (?)

Top Piercing:

Nipple

yep, sudden spike in nipple piercings. A few others said there's been a spike in navel piercings, but they said that happens in the summer. One piercer said he noticed a spike in older folks coming in for piercings... old like in their 40s-50s...odd

Thoughts? Those of you across the globe, what's trending in your neck of the woods?

tattoo talk part 2

So, I'm thinking of getting a tattoo... for real this time. In my previous post, I talked about getting a tattoo that looks cool, but doesn't really mean anything (and mentioned all the tattoos I wanted at one point). So I'm thinking that I'd like a blackwork tattoo. maybe some stripes, maybe something more complex. Something geometric and with straight lines and angles.

or... see Kinzoku from the Wet Moon comic

Tattoo talk part 1

People are usually both surprised and not surprised when they find out that I don't have any tattoos. Surprised, for obvious reasons, but then they quickly justify it with "Well, knowing you, if you had a tattoo, we'd probably see it." Yeah, probably true. I've got nothing against tattoos. I've always wanted one. But I never could decide of what.

In high school, I wanted a NIN tattoo. Also a barcode at the back of my neck. Later I wanted a "cut here" neck tattoo. Then I decided that the centipede would be my "totem animal" and wanted a HUGE centipede over my entire body. Then I wanted a biomechanical sleeve.  Then a pentagram. Later I wanted the words "All we have to lose is our chains" on my chest, and my favorite quote "I am the cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me." Then, before I left Chicago, I wanted the Chicago flag on my arm.

This is what I'd look like if I had every tattoo I wanted (AND if I was a lingerie model!):

I'm sure I'm missing something. Also, the upper part of my forearm has both stripes and the chicago flag... wanted both at one point. I still kinda like the centipede. 

Post Your Collection: Earrings

So, I was switching out my earrings and thought to take a few pictures of the earrings I had... and then it turned into taking pictures of my entire earring collection. I do this periodically. Last time I did this was 4 years ago. For scale, each of the long industrial barbells are 1-1/4" inches.

My piercings, so these make sense to you: 4g lobes, 8g lobes, 18g lobe left ear, 14g industrial right ear. 16g lip, 18g nostril.

4 years ago, this was my collection:

you can see that some of the bone hasn't yellowed yet completely, and the bloodwood earrings (far left) are a pretty vibrant reddish color.