All About MY Conch Piercing

When: May 20, 2016

Cost: $69.00 What is a Conch Piercing? In case you’re unfamiliar with this piercing it is located on the curved piece of cartilage of your ear. It's that cupped little bit where your earbuds sit. You’ll often see them with a Hoop or CBR in them. That’s the pretty popular look today. The name comes from the similarity in appearance to the shell of a marine invertebrate.

My Conch celebrated its 1st birthday in May. It’s birthday is the same as me since that was how I choose to celebrate my birthday last year.

This is a piercing I was rather nervous to get. When I got my septum pierced in September 2015 on BOGO night at my piercing shop I passed up on the chance to get it done for free because I was honestly scared to get it done. Oh, this is a location close to my alma mater’s campus and NOT where I had my industrial piercing done. I’m no dummy I wasn’t going to chose cheap over quality. Anyways I digress… The countless youtube videos I watched seemed painful and bloody! A lot of those however were conch punches, that is a technique used for those who want a large initial hole. And this actually removes a sizable chunk of tissue and it bleeds. This is NOT what I had done. And I ended up regretting not getting my conch pierced on BOGO night so I became obsessed with getting it done.

So when I found out that the piercing shop I go to has a special for birthday boys and girls and that is 50% off a piercing. So I decided that it was the best opportunity I was going to have since I would be spending less on the actual piercing so I could upgrade the jewelry to something I could stand to look at for the next year.

So my boyfriend got off work and we went on our way to the piercing shop. I double checked my favorite piercers hours and location (they just opened a second location) because I wanted to be pierced by the piercer who did my septum and my second set of lobe piercings. As soon as we walked in to the shop the woman working the counter right away welcomed us and asked how she could help. That’s one thing that always impressed me, we are always greeted and acknowledged as soon as we walked in even if they were busy. I told her what I wanted, she took my id copied it and I signed my life away and she showed me the display of the jewelry I could upgrade to.

So I picked out a 4mm lavender opal threadless end by Neometal. My piercing shop won’t pierce conches with the "hoop" style

jewelry, they use a barbell. The logic is that the piercing will heal easier since it won’t be getting bumped as much and there just isn’t as much movement, and that reduces a lot of stress on the healing piercing. We didn’t have to wait long and my piercer called me back and we followed him back he told me to have a seat, asked me if I was allergic to latex and if I planned to wear a hoop in my conch piercing after it was healed and I said maybe. I actually really love the look of some sparkly tucked away in that part of the ear. But since I was undecided about it he placed it where it would be no problem to slip a hoop in in the future.

He opened the tools cleaned his hands, had me lay back had me do the whole deep breath in a few times and then he pushed the needle though my ear. It hurt. I mean none of my piercings were very painful, but it was definitely the one that hurt most. But it was still bearable. Thinking your ripped your pinky toe off on the coffee table leg in the dark hurts more, splinters under your finger nail hurts worse… But then he put the jewelry in. That was really bad. I always think putting the jewelry is the worse part this was very true with this one. I don’t know if it was because it was the threadless and he had to push hard to get it in or what but OUCH! When I stood up my knees were actually a little weak that had never happened to be before when I got a piercings or a tattoo. I mean I know a lot of things can affect that but I didn’t knowingly do anything different this go around.

So my conch piercing was done at 18 gauge. I know that 14 gauge is the normal so I was a little confused about that but I didn’t notice until I looked at my after care info. But my piercer is an APP member and I let him put 3 other holes in my body so I don’t think it will negatively affect me or the piercing. And I do plan to go back there when I want to put something circular in my conch. As for the cost it was a total of $69.00. The piercing itself was $30 with the 50% off discount. The jewelry upgrade was $25 and the rest was the tip. Always tip! My after care is 2 times a day sea salt soak for 10 mins.

So, like I said I’ve had my conch pierced for a year and it is very happy. As I mentioned in my “All About My Industrial Piercing” blog I tend to get the dreaded piercing bump. I only got it once with this piercing but it wasn’t because of stress on the piercing. One day while cleaning it I noticed something hard and whitish fleshy toned show up on the cotton ball I was cleaning the back of it with. I’m 99% sure that it was a tiny bit of cartilage that was stuck under the skin. It wasn’t the piercers fault and it wasn’t my fault and it’s just one of those things that can happen. After that I had no problem with the healing. It hasn’t hurt since about the 4th month. It was the happiest cartilage piercing I’ve ever gotten. I think it has to do with the location of the piercing, skill of the piercer and quality of jewelry. I still have the barbell in for the time being. I do plan to go back to the shop where it was pierced to get something pretty and circular put in even though I’m going to grad school 2 hours away. And that’s because I’m comfortable there, I know I’ll get perfectly fitting jewelry, I have a 5 dollar off jewelry coupon they give you when you get pierced and the piercer I always request remembers me and that I tip half way descent so I get a little extra off. Follow me on instagram @to_sleep_perchance_to_dream for photos updates and jewelry changes on all of my piercings.

If you have any questions about my piercing don’t hesitate to ask! I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have. Also feel free to share your conch piercing experiences and photos!

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