xilvoq-redgate:

First mohawk haircut of my life! Yay!  I’m also going to be dying it, I think, light purple at some point.  Pictures will be posted! :D

I’m finally a 0g!  I’ll be making a video about how I did it, what I used, my plug collection, etc… So keep an eye out for that, I’ll probably be uploading it sometime this afternoon. ^_^

multie-highs:

Submission from theredgate

[Text Reads: Multie High #72 When the littles wake up on Christmas morning!]

Morte shared a memory with Raven today, who then shared it with the rest of us.  I won’t get into what exactly the memory was.  I’ll just say it was difficult to relive… And the worst part is we know there are so many more.  But Morte’s just keeping it all to himself and torturing himself with the memories.  It’s just a bad situation all around.  We’ve also been really depressed the past few weeks.  It’s been hard lately.  But we’re still a-goin’…  Hope everyone else is doing better than us. :)

I realized last night that I was allergic to the teflon tape I was wrapping my plugs with.  So I took them out, took all the tape of, washed them like a madwoman, and put the plain 2g plugs back in. /sigh I had suuuuuch a bad rash inside my ears, and they were swollen so bad last night.  But they started getting better right after I took the wraps of teflon tape off.  So that’s good.  At least there’s no tearing or infection going on. :D Just a slight allergic reaction.  So… course of action: wait for my ears to calm down, massage them with vitamin e oil, do salt water soaks, and run my ears under cool water for the swelling.  When my ears are comfortable again, I’ll start lightly tugging on them again.  An then in a couple months when my ears are fully happy I’ll try using the 0g taper again, and my ears will probably be loose enough from pulling on them to slide it right through. ^_^

The first stretch I ever did was to a 14g when I was 12 years old.  Then I started stretching my ears with my friend Michelle when I was thirteen.  I bought some of those 12g hoops.  Slid right in, no problems there.  I kept those in until I was about fifteen, when I went to a 10g.  Same thing, waited years with those since I was content at that size.  I liked the little hoops I had and was perfectly happy to stay there.  Then when I was 20, in January 2012, I stretched up to an 8g.  Again, since I waited so incredible long the taper slid right in, and I put the tiny plugs in.  I kept those in until my birthday in April, so it had been about four months when I went to a 6g.  The six was a little stingy, but not too bad.  I put in some steel screw back tunnels in while they were healing and adjusting.  Then about a month later I got some mexican amber double flared plugs which I had in for another two months.  I didn’t really want to use tapers any more, so I did something a little different.  I just started tugging on them gently a few times a day.  No pain while doing this since I didn’t pull too hard.  After two months of playing with them I was able to slide a 2g plug in with no resistance. (I tried a 4g plug first but it just fell out because my ears were so loose.)  Right now I’m at a 2g with about 10 wraps of teflon tape on them.  I figure I probably only need a few more wraps to get to my goal of 0g.  The taping method was the best thing that ever happened to me.  It made stretching so much easier than using a taper and it was only like $2 for the roll of tape (compared to the $12-ish tapers at hot topic that’s pretty good.

Now I have some little tricks for stretching, if anyone’s interested.  The best thing while I was at smaller sizes and using tapers was vitamin E oil to lube the tapers with.  And the best thing at bigger sizes was teflon tape (bondage tape also works and some people even say it works better).  The most important thing I can say is that you should always wait until your ears are ready.  You don’t have to wait years like I did unless you want to.  But give it time!  Only change out your jewelry when your current plugs/tunnels are too small for you.  If you can pull them down and see a space in between the plug and your ear, you’re usually safe to go up a size.  If anything you do hurts, stop immediately.  Nothing about this should hurt besides maybe the initial piercing of your ears.  If it hurts to go up a size, go back down a size and wait until your ears are ready.  You shouldn’t have to use force to get a taper through.  I never needed more than a light push to get anything through, and none of my stretches hurt at all.  Just as they shouldn’t.  If you’re ever in doubt about what to do, how fast or slow you should go, what materials to use, how things are supposed to be used: don’t be afraid to ask a professional piercer.  You can trust that they’ll give you correct answers and point you in the right direction.  Every once in a while I stop by to see Brian, who’s done every single one of my piercings, and just show him my ears so he can reassure me that they’re doing alright.  Plus he’s always excited to see them after a new stretch. ^_^ 

It works!  I wasn’t sure if it would, but it does!  My 2g plugs are all taped up now.  Probably only have 0.5-1 mm left to tape up to before I can wear my 0g tunnels. :D Yay!  Though I must say, the buttloads of tape on my plugs looks a bit stupid.  I mean, you can see all the tape I put on a little bit and it looks a little awkward.  But it’s worth the weird in between-ness to get to 0. ^_^

My new babies! :3 Using the taping method to stretch up to 0g.

Hey, http://jenna-is-a-unicorn.tumblr.com/! These are the other tunnels I’m sending you!  ^_^

It’s quantum524’s birthday today!  We got a picture of LeeLee with her birthday cupcake!

So a few days ago I “stretched” to a 4g.  I say “stretched” because my 6g plugs were so loose I didn’t even need the 4g tapers to get the plugs in. AND I still have a ton of room outside my 4g plugs.  So today I’m buying 2g and 0g plugs and tapers.  I’m going to try to 2g first, see how easily that goes in.  I have a feeling I might not even need the tapers to go up to a 2g.  And if I still have room after that, I’m going to try going to a 0g.  I’m not going to force anything in, obviously.  I’m just getting the 0g plugs incase the 2g plugs are still too small.  But if I have to wait a few months to get the 0g’s in, that’s fine too.  I don’t mind being patient with my ears, I figure it’s worth it to have nice healthy lobes. ^_^

So now I’ll explain how I painlessly stretched my ears from a 6g to a 2/0g in three months.  So… I kept my 6g plugs in for about three months.  And what I would do is a few times a day, I would just play with them (I only started doing this after they were fully healed after about a month though).  I just lightly tug on them.  I don’t do it so much that it hurts or anything, just enough to feel a little stretching going on.  And twice a day I massage my lobes with some nice moisturizer to help the circulation in my ears.  I also wash them in the shower once a day with soap and warm water.  Like I said, for the last stretch, I didn’t even needed to use tapers!  I was shocked when I slid my 4g tapers in and they fell out the other side with no resistance whatsoever!  I expect the same to happen with the 2g tapers and maybe even the 0g tapers since I have SO much room still.  I don’t know if this is the correct way to do things.  All I know is that it successfully stretched my ears, it was 100% painless, and my lobes look really healthy now.  I’ve never had an infection, blowout, tearing, bleeding, pain or anything else like that.

So yeah, that’s my little story on earlobe stretching.  I’ll be at my goal size, 0g, pretty soon.  In a few months if not today.  I’ll be posting pictures when I get there, of course! <3  Merry stretching, everyone!

Playing with the camera on our Nintendo 3DS.  :)