(This is a previously recorded diary from 8/11/2009)

History - Why two tongue piercings?

• When I was 15 my 14 year old step-sister got her tongue pierced. I was fascinated by this little sparkily thing I’d catch a glimpse of whenever she spoke - it seemed to make something as normal as chatting special somehow and I was mesmerised! However having some big bald-headed tattooed guy stick a needle through me sounded like something out of a horror movie!
  
• At 16 I got a needle stuck through my belly button by some big bald-headed tattooed guy... and something was born....
  
• At 19 I was recommended Mike at [ab]normal. Mike completely bowled me over with his knowledge, passion and care for piercings and its his fault I became a body piercer. He told me that my tongue was too small for a standard tongue piercing.
  
• At 20 It was thanks to my BME subscription that I was exposed to the idea of venoms which needed to be a little further forward than a standard tongue piercing and suddenly an idea was born!

Studio – Chioko, Camden Town, London.
I’ve never personally been a fan of self piercing. Part of the joy for me is going to a studio and interacting with another person, it feels more personal and more of a self history that way...so I didn’t want to do this myself.

I’ve been recommending Chioko in Camden to people here for the past few months as I’ve seen their work, heard reviews and had friends pierced by them so it was about time I took my own advice and went and checked them out.

I was immediately impressed by Reka’s friendly and professional attitude, she said all the right things and is clearly very knowledgeable. Her studio was clean and the autoclave and ultrasonic are clearly on show – with printouts available to anyone who asks. She took me into the studio to have a better look at my tongue and (with no prompting) agreed; tricky but doable. After explaining I was also a piercer and talking shop with her for a bit I felt she was both confident and competent so agreed to come back.


The piercing itself.
After filling up on all you can eat oriental buffet food (well it was going to my last solid meal for a few days!) and taking a few Arnica supplements I went back to Chioko .
Reka was great (And more importantly looks nothing like the big bald-headed tattooed guy from my imagination) and her confident easy manner made me feel safe (as I was a bit nervous).

She marked my tongue spot on first time but still explored other spots so we could double check before we settled back on the first one while she was doing this she talked me though everything in a clam matter of fact manner which both put me at ease and explained what was going on.

The clamps were uncomfortable ( I could feel their gripy bits which was weird!) but not too bad and the actual piercing itself wasn’t a sharp pain like I had expected but was more like a hot scrapping sensation and a heavy pressure. The second one hurt more than the first (Hotter scrapping!) but I’d expected that and it was quite bearable as it was over quickly.