Your eyes are usually the most expressive areas on your body, and your eyes are wholly unique. Naturally, a powerful way to emphasize your eyes is with body piercings! While facial piercings generally speaking are becoming ever more popular and acceptable, piercings in the eye area are really pioneering new styles and methods in your body piercing and body modification world.
While I don’t want to discourage you from getting a piercing in the eye area (in fact, I think eye area piercings are a beautiful way to enhance features), I do want you to be fully informed. I shall first explain eyebrow piercings, which are rather common now, and then I will dive into the rarer – and RISKIER- piercings which can be done near the eyes.
Eyebrow Piercings are common piercings in our culture. The eyebrow piercing can be put anywhere on the eyebrow, although only a very skilled piercer should consider piercing near the inner corners (closest to the nose) of the eyebrow, for three major nerves are located in this region (because of this, this isn’t a popular placement). Most piercings are pierced at a forty degree angle, to be able to minimize risks of tearing the jewelry out. Most initial jewelry consists of either curved barbells or captive rings, depending on your facial structure. Some people get multiple eyebrow piercings on either eyebrows – your creativity is often the limit.
Once pierced, these piercings take anywhere from three to five weeks to heal, but irritations such as makeup or sweat can irritate the piercing and prolong healing. While the eyebrow is probably the least infected piercings, the risk is indeed there – so make sure you soak using warm saline solution, don’t touch the jewelry with dirty hands, and follow all aftercare instructions given to you by your professional piercer.
Speaking of professional piercers, some people may try and explain how you can pierce your own eyebrow with a safety pin (or something of that sort) with no difficulty. This isn’t wholly true. Though it may be not difficult to push sharp objects through the eyebrow (there isn’t lots of tissue or muscle underneath, as compared with other piercing locations), the odds of your body rejecting the jewelry is much higher when it’s yourself. Since there is not many tissue to hold the jewelry in place, sometimes it can “migrate” (a nice term for pushing itself from your skin – not fun). Besides, heating a sharp metal object over a flame does NOT constitute as disinfecting! Many bacteria are only destroyed at temperatures far higher than what a flame can provide! Tempting though it might be – don’t pierce your own eyebrow; it will probably become infected, it may become rejected, and if your placement is wrong it will look awkward. Spending a couple bucks for a licensed professional to make it happen is well worth your money.
A very unique and uncommon piercing is the Third Eye Piercings. Akin to a bridge piercing (see my nose piercing article for more info), the Third Eye Piercings are pierced using surface bars or curved barbells. These piercings are located between your eyebrows (maybe about it at all higher that between the eyebrows, depending on face shape) and are technically considered a surface piercing. Therefore Third Eye Piercings can migrate or become rejected if not cared for properly. Although these piercings look amazing, these piercings are given to reoccurring infections in case you stringently adhere to the correct aftercare. Sweat, makeup, face wash, are all irritants; this part of the face is very expressive (just imagine frowning, acting surprised, squinting, etc) so the skin around this piercing will move frequently and delaying the healing time. Not everyone can keep this piercing, but if you love how it looks, it just may be worth a try. Talk to your piercer and decide what’s good for you!
The Anti-Eyebrow is still very rare but when healed properly can look very intriguing. Usually pierced below the eye, on the orbital bone/upper cheek area, the Anti-Eyebrow is also called a “teardrop piercing”. This is the surface piercing, so the chance of migration and rejection is possible, although with the skin, tissue, and muscle density in this region, this piercing can last for some time if maintained properly. The potential risk of infection is pretty low should you not sweat, touch the jewelry, or wear makeup. Be sure you clean the area thoroughly and cautiously during the healing period (approximately six weeks).
And finally, the last piercing in the eye area is not one I can actually recommend to anyone, but as it is out there, I feel compelled to discuss it. The eyelid piercing is just about the rarest piercing on the planet – and even for good reason. To my knowledge, only a small number of people have this piercing, and not everyone eyelids are conducive to the piercing. The eyelid is a thin layer of skin is made to protect, nourish, and moisturize the eyes and corneas. Piercing the eyelid is very dangerous, and 99.99% of all professional piercers will refuse to accomplish this procedure. Blindness can happen if the piercing goes awry. It is extremely tricky from the piercer’s viewpoint to successfully complete this procedure, for arranging the forceps and needle to miss the eyeball is no easy feat. Ophthalmology surgeons spend the better part of a decade learning specifically how to achieve this and get paid very handsomely to miss eyeballs, just to put it in perspective.
In case you somehow convince a piercer to risk their reputation and pierce your eyelid for you, cleaning the eyelid is difficult. Captive rings are used, and the eyelid will swell, you will have crust and puss, and sizzling hot you can hope to keep the piercing clean is with your personal tears and saline solution (which closely matches your tears). If you wear contacts, a misplaced piercing will scratch them; heck, a misplaced eye piercing will scratch your corneas – which is often excruciating. These types of piercings do not last long since there are way too many irritants in our world to prevent a complete and infection-free healing.
While final pictures of the few brave those who have this procedure look totally awesome, it may cause irreversible and serious damage. I can’t recommend this to anyone, although I am completely for pushing the boundaries of self expression, but I would feel awful if someone attempted this piercing and failed. If considering an eyelid piercing – find a piercer who has performed it before (who is probably not willing to achieve it anyway), be fully aware and prepared for the worst, good luck, and send me a picture!
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