00:02People are always asking me, is this going to hurt?
00:05What's it feel like?
00:08You know what I tell them?
00:10Shh.
00:11It's pain.
00:13Life is painful.
00:17My name is Andrea, and I'm getting a rook piercing today.
00:21I know they said that this is the new beauty trend in LA,
00:24especially in LA.
00:25It's been, like, pretty popular,
00:26but I think it's been around since the 90s.
00:28A rook is this part of your ear right here, this fold.
00:32It's one of my favorites.
00:34I love decorating the ears.
00:35I feel like they were meant to be decorated.
00:37They need it.
00:38They want it.
00:39They were put there to hang jewelry off of.
00:43My name is Brian Keith Thompson.
00:45I'm the owner and chief piercer at Body Electric Tattoo
00:48in Los Angeles, California.
00:51Body Electric, I was a client there.
00:52I had recently got out of prison.
00:55Yes, prison.
00:57And I needed to get some cover-up tattoos.
01:00The owner at the time made me go into the mirror
01:02and pierce my nose myself.
01:04And I did it.
01:05I'm a sucker for a dare.
01:07And it changed something in me.
01:10The better I got at it, the more I loved it,
01:12the more I loved it, the better I got at it.
01:14I've wanted cartilage piercings on my ears for so, so long.
01:18One of the reasons I've definitely been worried about
01:20getting the cartilage piercings,
01:22because I hear that you can't really, like, sleep on them
01:24and it's really hard.
01:25And I toss and turn all the time throughout my sleep.
01:27And I heard with the Rook, you can sleep on it, like,
01:29right afterwards because it's right in between your ear.
01:32I don't do every type of piercing.
01:34I turn people down at least once a week.
01:37I had an eight-year-old come in and want her navel pierced
01:39with her mom.
01:40I just was not going to do that.
01:42I don't pierce the tongue.
01:44I don't want to touch anybody's tongue,
01:45and I feel it's very negative on the mouth.
01:47People call me an artist.
01:49I am not an artist.
01:50I am a stylist.
01:51I'm a decorator.
01:52That's what I do.
01:57I mentally prepare for getting piercings done
01:59by just kind of pretending like it's not going to happen
02:02until the needle's right next to me.
02:09I mean, I'm definitely not super excited to be stabbed
02:12by these needles today, but, I mean, why not, right?
02:17You're going to see a glass receiving tube.
02:19I like the glass because I can see the needle exit
02:22the bottom of the rook.
02:23You're seeing small, minute changes right before the piercing
02:27of me determining angle and depth.
02:36When I execute, I apply pressure to the needle.
02:39It pierces through the part of the ear.
02:42I maintain constant pressure and fluid movements as I'm piercing
02:48to limit trauma and pain to the client.
03:01It happens in a split second.
03:06Voila.
03:07A freshly pierced rook.
03:11My method is basically taking each client and trying to make it unique.
03:18If they give me that freedom to do actually what I want,
03:22usually it comes out much better.
03:24I noticed that she was wearing things in her lobes.
03:27I didn't feel like it fit her well.
03:29Whatever that was, that star thingy.
03:32So we tossed those out and then moved the diamond studs down,
03:36put some gold hoops behind that on the second piercing.
03:39So today I was just going to get the rook piercing
03:41and then I got there and ended up getting three because he convinced me.
03:46Andrea let me perform the constellation piercing.
03:48What a constellation piercing is, is a multitude of piercings sporadic on your ear
03:55with no rhyme or reason why they should be there.
03:57I've gotten a lot of attention for it, but it's just something I've embraced.
04:01If you're getting multiple piercings, know that the first one's going to hurt less
04:05than the second one.
04:07Second one's going to hurt more.
04:08Third one's going to hurt more.
04:10That one hurt more, you lied.
04:13So the more you hurt yourself, the more your body sends that pain to your brain.
04:18To get you to what?
04:19Stop hurting yourself.
04:22I did a 2.5 mil disc in her conch.
04:32And I did a tiny 1.5 millimeter diamond on her upper lobe.
04:39My initial reaction was that it looked badass, to be totally honest.
04:45Changing the jewelry in your ear can absolutely transform somebody's style.
04:49I tell people all the time, a tattoo is a marriage, a piercing is a mistress.
04:53I was a little nervous definitely about getting stabbed three times,
04:56but it ended up like not being as bad as I thought it was going to be.
05:00Brian was amazing.
05:01He's like obviously super professional and had no problem telling me
05:04that he hated everything that I had and was like you need to do this.
05:09The aftercare, the actual healing process can take months and it can be quite painful.
05:14One of the number one causes of problems associated with getting a piercing
05:18is the client playing, touching, twisting and turning the jewelry.
05:22Less care is best care, I tell all my clients.
05:25What I prefer to use is a Castile soap from Dr. Bronner's.
05:28Massaging the soap gently around the piercing area and then rinsing it completely off.
05:35After 12 years of piercing, I still love to pierce because every day is different.
05:40Every client is unique, their different personalities, their ear shape, their anatomy.
05:46Every day it's a challenge, it's different, it's fun.
05:51At the moment it really doesn't hurt, but I know that it's going to at some point.
05:55I think my ear is just like in shock.
05:57But for right now, I kind of feel like a boss ass bitch now.
