still holiday shopping?

It's almost Christmas time everyone and I wanted to remind you that if you know someone who has piercings, new body jewelry can make a great present. We have a lot of nice shiny things in the case right now so stop by Fatty's to check it out.

Also, sorry but my website is down right now. I'm redoing it...well a friend is redoing it and jazzing it up and whatnot. I cant wait till it's all fancy and new!

Support your local piercing studio!!!

As written by a very talented piercer-friend of mine(Courtney Jane Maxwell):

"These days, body jewelry is available literally EVERYWHERE. You can even buy it in a gas station. I'm sure most people have heard that there are large differences in quality, as far as material, design, and construction. While I personally don't like the idea of people spending the time and money to get a piercing, then wearing junky, poor fitting, or even dangerous jewelry in it, I do understand that it is YOUR RIGHT to wear whatever jewelry you want, even if it can cause serious consequences.

I have a different idea to present to you about body jewelry. This one is regarding economics. Piercing studios are not an endlessly profitable business. They are not like some, where they can grow almost indefinitely. A piercing studio will always be limited by the fact that people will only get so many piercings, and only so many people can actually have piercings, because of work or school. Part of what keeps a studio going, is being able to sell jewelry. Obviously, there is the added bonus that your piercer has the knowledge to help you select jewelry that will be the best for your piercing- they are also generally the only place that will specialize in body jewelry. This means, more variety. While the store in the mall have the lip ring you want in only one size, a piercing studio will typical have, or be able to order, hundreds of size and color combinations for you. This way you can actually get what you want, instead of settling for what is there. That is all in addition to the ever present issue of quality.

It's really pretty simple: If people don't support their local piercing studio, there is no way they can stay in business. So while you may run in to see your piercer for jewelry changes, advice, help stretching, and number of other services, (Some they don't even charge for!), that professional can only be there to help you if they have a studio to work in. Everyday, more and more retail stores and websites begin selling bargain basement body jewelry. Everyday, one less person buys their jewelry from the local piercing studio. What I'm getting at, is that if you value the service your local piercer provides to you, buy jewelry at their shop. It seems like such a little thing, to pick up some cheap jewelry at the mall, but trust me, it adds up. Smaller, independently owned businesses cannot stay open if you refuse to support them. So the next time you are bargain hunting on the internet, please remember, if your piercer is good to you, the best thing you can do to repay them is buy jewelry at their studio."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks Courtney :)

Winter Time

So it's almost time for holiday shopping and I'm hoping everyone remembers that body jewelry makes a great gift! Stop by Fatty's for some cool and unique gifts.

I'm going to update my website soon, I'm just looking for someone to help me with it. I think it needs more zazz really. If you or anyone you know is good with that kind of stuff let me know.

I've noticed lately that some of my customers get pretty upset when I tell them their friends cannot accompany them in my room while getting pierced. Now, I'm certainly not doing this to upset anyone, it's simply just one of my safety rules. While I'm doing a piercing, it's very important to me that I'm not going to be distracted by anything. I would prefer to focus all of my attention only on the person who is getting pierced. I think I preform much better one on one. Sometimes I can be distracted easily and I want to make sure my customers have the best piercing experience possible. I swear I'm not trying to be mean, it's just the way I learned how to pierce and It's been working quite well for me so far.

Happy Fall!

Hi everyone. I'm happy to say that Mason has been fitting quite nicely here at Fatty's, and if you haven't come to meet him you certainly should. It's almost Halloween! This year it falls on a Sunday, which is fine with me becuase I'll be dressing up and working all day from 12:30 to 8. If you come in to get a piercing in costume then I'll be giving you a special treat. :p

Friday!

Hello! I apologize for the delay in updating; life has been extremely hectic as I have recently moved. That being said, things at Fatty's are going great, and all the college students are coming back which make me a lot busier.
I'm happy Fall is approaching becuase people will not be swimming as much. People always feel more inclined to get pierced in the summer time but really and truly this is the worst time for a fresh piercing. Even if you can manage to stay out of the pool with the chlorine and oodles of bacteria that can make your piercing super angry, and manage to stay out of the ocean- what about the sand? what about sunscreen? what about the ridiculous amount of humidity in the DC/Maryland area that will cause your piercing to stay damp all day long? It's just not a good time to get a piercing. Period. For some reason though, I'm always much busier in the summer then in the winter. Oh well I guess...
A nice young man I know named Mason has recently moved back to Maryland. He's a great piercer and will be picking up a few days here and there at Fatty's when I need to take off. He will also be working for most of Wednesdays each week, so come visit him and give him a nice warm welcome. That's all for now!

Cute Jewelry!

I love love love it when people let me order them custom jewelry once their piercing is all healed. Here is a photo of an industrial piercing I did about 5 months ago. I ordered this piece of jewelry from Le Roi after pulling some really nasty hot topic jewelry from his piercing. It makes me sad when I do a piercing and it heals well and the customer ends up putting some shitty jewelry from the mall in their piercing and irritating the Hell out of it. Just let me get you something nice!!!! It's my job!!!

proud of myself

So I've only done 2 pairs of high nostril piercings. They look so cute but no one seems to even know they are possible around here. Here is a picture of my friend Tina with her almost healed high nostril piercings I did on her a few months ago. She came in today to have me put more snug jewelry in: before I changed the jewelry it was sticking up like antennae and it looked so funny- I probably should have grabbed a picture of that too, but here they are. I'm pretty happy with them.

This is not a thrift store!!!!

Hi everyone! Why are all my customers trying to haggle with me on prices today? Can someone explain that to me? You wouldn't haggle with an anesthetician(sp?) about the price of a facial or waxing service would you? Or would you haggle about the price of a haircut? I think it's silly becuase we don't even mark the prices of our jewelry up that much. The reason our jewelry costs more then Hot Topic is becuase it lasts longer. It's GOOD quality and wont tarnish over time/the gems wont fall out. If you want to spend $5.00 on a navel curve that will make you break out in a rash then go to the mall!

TGIF!!!!

Hello everyone. I was very happy to see that when I came into work today, a package from Anatometal was waiting for me. I was running dangerously low on microdermals but now I am all stocked up! Come get some at Fatty's Custom Tattooz. I will be working all weekend from 12:30 to 8:00. Hope to see you all soon :)

Nipples!!!

Over the past year or so I've been working really hard to become 100% comfortable with free-handing all my piercings. If you dont know what the difference is, it means piercing without the use of forceps to hold the skin. I'm not saying that clamps are terrible to use; in fact I know a lot of great piercers who use them. I also have become friends with a lot of good piercers who switched over to freehand, and I feel like after much research and personal practice that it makes a world of difference. Ive found it to make piercings less painful with less swelling and a faster healing time. I've also found that with many piercings it has become easier to freehand some things. After free-handing my first navel, I would never go back to the use of clamps. There are a few piercings which I have been struggling to feel comfortable without the use of clamps though: nipples, tongues, frenums and bridge piercings. I've been working to switch over all the way, but I will not pierce with a technique I am not comfortable with. Today was one of the first times I free-handed a nipple and felt awesome about it. It came out great. That is one more piercing I can check off the list. Today is a good day :)

I learned something new today

So today I sold a customer a pair of glass single flared plugs to stretch her earlobes with. As i do with a lot of customers I asked her what she used to moisturize her ear lobes. It seems that everyone has their own favorite product and so I kind of like hearing what other people like. She told me she was using castor oil. I am not familiar with this oil at all, and so I looked it up on line and learned that it's a vegetable oil made from the castor bean. I also learned that castor oil is very penetrating on your skin, has anti-inflammatory properties and is very good at generally moisturizing your skin. It's supposedly in a lot of cosmetics and beauty products. I personally have been using emu oil for a few years now on my ear lobes, but Ive heard of using all sorts of things like vitamin E oil, jojoba oil, grape seed oil, plain lotion, baby oil, coconut oil, ect... I think I might grab some from cvs and give this stuff a try.

I'm back bitches!!!

Hello everyone. I'm back from vacation. I'm relaxed and ready to pierce you guys! I missed the shop a lot actually. I know it sounds nerdy but I missed piercing very much. Today's first piercing of the day made me feel really good about myself. Here is a photo. for some reason I had a really hard time getting a good picture...hopefully she'll come back when it's all healed. That is all for now!

I'm out you guys!!!

So tomorrow I'm leaving for Bethany Beach in Delaware. I'm going to be there for a week. If you want to come get pierced next week a nice young man named Ryan will be at Fatty's in place of me. If you must must must get a hold of me you can email me at askyourpiercer@fattyscustomtattooz.com and hopefully I will be able to check my email every day but don't get mad if I don't respond to your message for a couple days. I need a vacation too ya know? Have a happy 4th of July everyone!!!!

Fantastic Fridays

Hello everyone. I haven't updated recently because I've been so busy-which is awesome. Today I've lost track of how many piercings I've done. It's great to be this busy again. It was slow for a while and I was starting to get a little worried, but I feel much more positive now. I even had a really sweet girl tip me in cupcakes today. She works at a store near us called "Hello Cupcake". I didn't even pierce her, just took out her nape piercing that was rejecting. I love when people tip me in stuff other then money, it's really cool. In the past I've had customers give me cd's, ice cream cake, coffee, freshly picked basil from an awesome hippie chick, a fossilized alligator tooth from an crazy old man, tea and more stuff I cant even remember. Sometimes I have awesome customers. Have a great 4th of July weekend everyone!

If you suspect your piercing is infected....

Recently Ive noticed a lot of customers coming in and claiming their piercing is infected, when really it is just irritated. I think its important that people understand the difference between the two, and let me tell you, there is a HUGE difference. Often a new piercing becomes irritated by the outside world. There are many things that can make a healing piercing angry that a lot of people don't think about or realize such as hair products, makeup, cleansers, perfumes, smoking, drug use, pet dander, pressure or rubbing from clothes, getting caught in hair, ect...All of these factors can cause your piercing to swell more or even become inflamed, but this does not mean your piercing is infected. This means it's up to you to find out what is making your piercing upset and correct it. When a piercing is irritated, it usually just needs a little TLC to get it back on track.
It's actually a lot harder to get a piercing infected then people think it is. Most of the time, your body does a great job of cleaning your piercings all on it's own. I would say 1 out of every 50 suspected infections are true infections. It does happen sometimes though, especially if you cant seem to stop playing with your fresh piercing with dirty fingers. An infected piercing will be very painful, swollen, hot to the touch and usually oozing a greenish/yellow puss or will sometimes just bleed. If you suspect an infection you should probably have a piercer take a look at it just to be sure, and NEVER take the jewelry out. When you remove the jewelry, you are removing the channel your body uses to drain the infection. Removing jewelry can cause the infection to become worse and possibly spread. If you piercing is infected it may require a trip to the doctor and some antibiotics, but you should keep the jewelry in place until the infection is cleared up. I'm posting some nasty pictures of infected piercings I found on the internet. Enjoy and have a great day everyone!

Saturday Update

So I've been stocking the case pretty well lately. Thanks to Evolve body jewelry I have a great selection of stone plugs now in a lot of different sizes. I'm also posting a picture of a good customer of mine named Claire. I'm posting a picture of the pretty blue opal earrings I ordered for her from Anatometal. I only did the top ear lobe piercings but I just think the jewelry looks so nice. Come by Fatty's if you want me to get you some pretty jewelry! Have a good weekend everyone!

Not exaclty piercing

So I realize this is not really piercing related, but I thought Id post these pictures to show our counter persons adventure with earlobe reconstruction. He had stretched his ear lobs way too fast, and as you can see in the photos they had gotten pretty jacked up in the process. He was a great guinea pig and allowed me to try my first ear lobe suturing on him. I finally took some pictures of them healed about 5 months later. You can also see in the healed pictures he has a few new piercings I did; a 16 gauge rook, 14 gauge tragus and a pair of higher 6 gauge ear lobes.

Just for the record

I will start doing microdermals on fingers and hands if you can show me one that is over a year old and healed. Until then you can keep going to whichever shop did your last microdermal on your finger which is not healing.

also, Yelp has been very good to me lately and has brought me a lot of business. I appreciate all of my customers who are leaving me nice reviews.

TGIF

This week has been long, and I'm glad it is Friday everyone; even if I do have to work Saturday and Sunday. Today has been ear lobe day so far. I keep getting surprised at how many people come in without their ear lobes pierced. People in their 20's and 30's who have never wanted to do it until recently. I'm glad they've done their research and chosen to come to a tattoo shop instead of going to Claire's or some other nasty place at the mall. I HATE piercing guns...They really should be made illegal everywhere.

grossamundo!

So I think everyone should check this out. It's a very gross sideshow to show some great examples of why you should never rush stretching your earlobes. I hope some people will learn from this.

It certainly is a good day when...

When a customer comes in 4 months later with perfectly healed piercings that I did then I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I did two microdermals on this girls back and she just came in to have the disk ends changed to nice 5 mil white opal ends from Anatometal. I'm posting a picture of them fresh, healed with the new ends and a side view so you can see how awesome and flat they are with her skin. I'm a happy girl right now.

So I come into work...

Today I came into work to find a middle aged couple both wanting to get pierced by me. They said they were impressed with the Fatty's web site and both wanted genital piercings. The woman received a 12 gauge VCH(vertical clitoral hood) piercing and her husband ended up getting a single 10 gauge frenum piercing. I like that they were doing it together; I thought it was adorable. I hope the rest of the day holds up to it's awesome beginning. Happy Sunday everyone.

I thought all you ladies should know this

So recently I had a customer(female) ask me questions about genital piercings. She was not aware of all the varieties and places to pierce. When I started listing different places you could pierce she stopped me at labia and asked me what labia were. To me as a woman it's a little sad to meet a woman that doesn't know the anatomy of her own vagina. So incase there are other women out there like her( and I'm sure there are), here is a picture to help clear some things up.

Saturdays

Today has been fairly busy so far, but I finally have a little break to make my first update on here. I hope my web site will be done soon, I'm very excited for it.
I'm uploading 2 pictures I thought would be good to share. The first is of my friend Jeremy's ear. He came to visit me at work today and was sporting some snazzy 7/16 Hematite plugs that I sold to him.
The second is of a customer who is a very sweet girl who was brave enough to let me do my first pair of high nostril piercings on her. She sent me this photo of them that her friend took-They are about 5 months old in the picture. I don't think I will use the photo for my portfolio since I didn't take it, and since it also shows other piercings i did not do, but I thought the photo was really pretty. Her piercings are doing great and that makes me happy.

First Timer

So I've never had a blog before. I've never really desired to until recently. For those of you who don't know me I am a professional body piercer working in Dupont Circle, Washington DC at a shop called Fatty's Custom Tattooz. I've created this blog for my web page so that my customers can learn new updates about the shop, new jewelry arrivals and information about my experiences in piercing. I'm excited to get my web site going, and I'm excited to see if anyone starts to pay attention to this blog. I'll try and make it interesting.