Tattoos and body piercings are now a regulated business within the city of Carlsbad.

This week, the City Council approved an ordinance by an 8-0 vote requiring licensure of and minimum standards for tattoo and piercing businesses.

Council members bandied about the various fees, at times talking about licensure fees as high as $75.

Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Elizabeth Baggs recommended a business fee of $35, with a $20 licensure fee and a $20 late fee.

“It’s your choice for the fees, but again, as far as the state’s concerned, a person that cuts hair, dyes hair, stuff like that, pays $20 a year for a license. But you’re the boss. I think that (the $75 licensure fee) is an awful lot,” Baggs said. “These (businesses) are not really making money.”

Baggs said the tattoo and piercing businesses have worked with the city to create clean, healthy atmospheres to create body art.

“We could literally eat off the floor,” Baggs said of the two businesses in town, Iron Butterfly and Ancient Illusions, both on South Canal Street.

Danny Wallace of Ancient Illusions said the businesses support the ordinance and hope it will help stop people from being injured by tattooing and piercing in unclean environments.

“We’re trying to help put a stop to the people who are getting hurt now. We’re not trying to push our business on anybody,” Wallace said. “The ones that are in business now, we’ve gone through so much to get where we’re at.

“We’ve got 16-, 17-year-olds doing their piercings at the high school, no sterilizations. When someone comes in with an infection with a belly button piercing, it goes into the gastrointestinal system. That can kill you,” Wallace said, noting that tattoos done with guitar strings and ink from pens are also dangerous.

The council passed the ordinance, which was amended from a previous one it had viewed last month to include the fees and a requirement for liability insurance.

www.currentargus.com

I've never quite understood the attraction of what is euphemistically called "body art." It used to be that tattoos were for sailors and " piercing" was usually confined to the earlobes of women. Nowadays an increasing number of people from all walks of life are covering themselves with tattoos and piercing any flap of skin dense enough to support a stainless steel post.

It all seems a little strange to me. It's not that I have any particular aversion to needles. I give blood regularly and I haven't cried (much) about having to get a shot since I was in grade school. But in general it is my policy to try to avoid situations where sharp objects threaten to pierce my protective layer of epidermis. This is especially true when it comes to my more sensitive body parts.

Take the eye for example. For me, the eye is one of the top three places on my body I don't want anyone taking a sharp instrument to. I won't mention what the other two places are, but disturbingly enough it is already the rage to have those areas pierced.

You might assume something as important and delicate as an eyeball would be exempt from the art of "body modification," but you'd be wrong. Thanks to some forward-thinking doctors in the Netherlands who apparently have way too much time on their hands, the world was recently introduced to the exciting possibility of having tiny pieces of jewelry inserted into the mucous membrane of the eyeball.

Six women and one man have had the cosmetic surgery performed at the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery, and there is a waiting list for people who want to have the procedure done. The cost is around 500 to 1,000 euros. I'm not sure what that comes to in American dollars and I'm not going to look it up, because I don't want to encourage any of my fellow citizens to do anything as stupid as this.

If you want to see a picture of this latest fashion trend (and it really has to be seen to be believed) check out this page on the CNN Web site http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/04/08/eye.jewelry.reut/ or just Google the term "eyeball jewelry" and you'll find plenty of links. But I warn you, if the sight of something metallic embedded in someone's eyeball makes you squeamish you'd best stay away from this one.

I'm all for personal freedom and I wouldn't advocate outlawing this bizarre practice as long as there is no apparent health risk. (The Dutch director of the institute where the procedure is performed has said they have seen no adverse side effects and "don't expect any in the future.")

But I would like to ask anyone who thinks this is a great idea one question - why?

This is not attractive, it's disturbing. And maybe that's the point. Some people want to stand out, and radically altering one's face with tattoos and piercings isn't enough - to really stand out you need to pay a Dutch eye surgeon to insert a gold heart into your eyeball.

It does make a statement. And that statement is this - I'll do anything to get people to look at me, even if I have to resort to doing something completely idiotic. To those people who have had something like this done I want to tell them that your message has been received, and we'll all adjust our image of you accordingly.

www.fortwayne.com

As local body piercer John Kid describes his work, he flips through a thick binder showcasing hundreds of pictures of nearly every type of body piercing and tattoo imaginable. While pointing to an interesting assortment of body art ranging from nape and nipple piercings to jewelry implants, he said people are starting to go to greater extremes to have a unique piercing or tattoo.
"People are definitely looking to do something their friend doesn't already have," Kid said. "And that's good for us, because we jump at the chance to do something we haven't done before."

Kid, the chief piercer at Blue Lotus Tattoo and the Piercing Lounge in downtown Madison, also said piercings and tattoos have become more accepted in mainstream society. He said this has brought in a variety of clients who might not have considered piercings or tattoos before.

"It's starting to reach mainstream a little more. We're getting 30-year-old mothers of two who want nape piercings," Kid said.

Kid said people used to largely only pierce the "basic eight" areas of the body: earlobe, outer cartilage, eyebrow, nose, tongue, lip or labret (the area directly under the lip), nipples and navel. Now, however, he said people are open to trying different body locations and types of piercings.

Kid said he has seen an increase in surface piercings. In surface piercings, such as a nape piercing, the piece of jewelry is inserted just under the skin. In addition, Kid said people are trying deeper piercings, custom piercings and spiral piercings.

"I definitely do see a change in what's popular," Kid said, adding that while he does not really see "new" piercings, he does see a rotation of what is popular and accepted in mainstream society. "For a lot of people, it's a trendy thing to do."

University of Wisconsin sophomore Kara Leibin got a tongue piercing her freshman year at UW. She said she had always wanted her tongue pierced but waited until she went to college because she knew her parents would not approve.

"I had a friend who had it done and I thought it looked really cool," Leibin said.

Leibin said she wore her tongue ring for approximately six months before taking it out.

"I liked it, but I got really tired of it. When I got it, I knew I wouldn't have it for that long," Leibin said.

While Leibin never had any problems with infections or felt any pain after the first few weeks, she said for a while the piercing felt strange and gave her a slight lisp.

"It was an experience," Leibin said. "I would never take it back."

While Leibin was satisfied with a short foray into the world of body piercing, for some local residents one piece of body art simply isn't enough. Madison resident Bri Deyo has three tattoos, nine piercings in her ears (four in one ear, five in the other) and a nasal septum piercing (where the tissue in the middle of the nose is pierced).

Deyo said she has all of her piercings gauged, meaning she has a bigger-sized piece of jewelry in each piercing in order to expand the size of the hole.

Deyo also said once she started getting tattoos and piercings, she found that she wanted to get more.

"I think it's true what they say: once you start piercing and tattooing, it's hard to stop because you're always thinking about other things you want to have done," Deyo said.

John Bauer, a junior at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn., agrees. Bauer has his eyebrow and both of his nipples pierced, as well as two piercings in his penis. He also has a tattoo on his chest. He said he would get more body art, but the cost prevents him from doing so.

While many people assume Bauer's penis piercings were the most painful to get, he said it is actually a toss-up between his penis and nipple piercings. He got his nipples pierced first, and he said the piercing was extremely painful.

"I'd rather have my whole body tattooed than have my nipples pierced again," Bauer said.

But Bauer said the moments right before having his penis pierced were also nerve-wracking.

"I was pretty scared," Bauer said. "I knew I wanted to do it, so there was never any thought that crossed my mind about not doing it. But when I was sitting there right before they were going to pierce it, I was thinking 'What am I doing?'"

Bauer said he has enjoyed all of his piercings and his tattoo so far, although he did have to remove his eyebrow piercing because it was growing out.

"If I could, I'd do it all over again. Plus I can take all of my piercings out if I want and it'll be just like I never had them," Bauer said.

But Leibin warns that everyone should research their piercing before they get it done so that they are aware of the possible dangers. She said she learned only after she took out her tongue ring how much damage they can do to tooth enamel and how dangerous tongue infections can be.

Deyo also said it is important to remember that all body art, especially tattoos, take a lot of work to care for and can be a long-term commitment.

"You really have to take care of them and be committed to them. It's a lifetime thing," Deyo said.

www.badgerherald.com

A lot of readers thought I'd made up the stuff about the new eyeball jewelry that's becoming all the rage in the Netherlands. Wish I had.

A tiny little heart or half-moon surgically implanted in the lining of the eyeball. What's not to love?

I wrote Monday that I fear my kids will be among the first in line at the eye doctor's office once the trend hits here. They're running out of other ways to torture me.

Other parents had the same thought.

"Hey, thanks for the heads up with the eye beautification. Mutilation? I thought those weird contacts that look like cat's eyes were bad," wrote a mom named Lisa.

Some readers reminisced about their own misspent youth. Misspent in that it largely was spent looking for fresh new ways to make parents crazy in the name of fashion.

"[Your column] brought back winces of pain from my otherwise normal youth. I came home with an earring once. Once. My father unceremoniously ripped it out of my head. It was the closest I will come to childbirth pain," wrote Jim of Yardley.

The JewelEye, though, was something he'd never have considered even back then.

"I was hoping you were, for the sake of humor, making the part up about a the new twinkle in your eye, but short hop onto the Internet proved you correct. What have we become? Does the saying, 'Beats a sharp stick in the eye' no longer mean anything to people?

"I spent many a night as a bouncer in various nightclubs in New York and New England. I have worked as a bodyguard for a lot of bands back in the '80s and '90s. Been in my share of fights. Never bothered me. But to think that someone would voluntarily submit to being strapped down, numbed, and with eyes wide open let someone else stick a glorified piece of dirt in their eye ... All I can say is thanks for stopping me from eating a breakfast I should not have made in the first place."

Still others wanted to rehash their children's poor choices.

Like, Lloyd, a retired Bristol Township teacher who thought he'd raise his kids to be too smart for stuff like piercings and tattoos. It wasn't to be. I feel your pain, Lloyd.

"My only daughter went off to college and returned with two tattoos on her hips that look like the Proctor & Gamble logo, a pierced eyebrow and tongue, bleached blonde hair [she's a brunette], and a tattoo of a Chinese character on her ankle. I assume that's all, but I'm afraid to ask," he told me.


"It has nothing to do with smarts. She graduated last June from Boston University with a magna cum laude [I can't spell it, but with her tongue piercing, she has difficulty pronouncing it] and now works for Warner Brothers on the Reba McIntyre show, 'Reba.' I suppose in L.A. she looks like a conservative - she gave up the eyebrow doodad.

"Don't think that you can embarrass them either," Lloyd continued. "When my daughter showed me the Chinese character on her ankle, she asked me what I thought of it. [Why do they ask after the fact?] I told her that I thought it was interesting, but I was a bit confused. I told you I was a teacher, so I know how to elicit a response. Of course, she asked why.

"Why would you have the expression 'girl who is cheap' tattooed on your ankle?" I asked. She countered that in Chinese it meant friend, to which I replied that in China it might mean friend, but in English it means "girl who is cheap."

Lloyd is a man after my own heart. He's learned that doing a little torturing of your own helps you keep your perspective.

That's what Sue of Yardley is working on.

Sue's 19-year-old daughter has a bellybutton ring, even though Sue's husband had threatened to withhold college tuition if his daughter pierced her middle. Need I tell you the bellybutton ring resides at Penn State and Daddy has paid the tuition in full?

You thought it would turn out any other way?

"My Mom used to tell me not to sweat the small stuff. I guess with all the garbage out there, body piercing would come under the category of small stuff. I cannot believe I have come so far that body piercing doesn't freak me out."

Quiet, Sue. That acceptance thing could be a big mistake.

My advice is to keep appearing horrified about the bellybutton ring. Could keep your darling out of the ophthalmologist's office.

www.phillyburbs.com

Outbreak of bacterial infection leaves some people with deformed ears
Experts who dealt with an outbreak of bacterial infection caused by contaminated piercing equipment are warning people not to get their ear cartilage pierced.

Because cartilage lacks the blood supply found in the lobe of the ear, it is less able to defend against infection, says William Keene, a public health official who investigated the outbreak in Klamath Falls, Ore.

Furthermore, once antibiotics are given, there is less blood circulation to ensure the antibiotics do their job, Keene says.

The outbreak was traced to a piercing store where an open, spring-loaded piercing gun was being used illegally. The bacteria were found in an atomizer solution containing disinfectant and in water pooled beneath a nearby sink.

"The people in the shop were doing a lot of things they shouldn't be doing." They were neither well-trained nor supervised, yet "they were cutting into peoples' bodies. It's not like selling magazines."

From 186 piercings in 118 individuals, public health specialists identified seven confirmed infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria.

The patients were 10 to 19 years of age, and many suffered significant pain when the infection set in. While hearing was not affected, in some cases the bacteria led to erosion of the cartilage, and some patients experienced changes in the appearance of the ear. Four were hospitalized and four needed surgical drainage of the infection.

Had the outbreak been in a city rather than a small town, it might have been a long time before public health professionals realized there was an outbreak and could trace it to its source, Keene says.

More education and more regulation of these kinds of businesses are needed, he says. He adds that youngsters should be warned to avoid having the cartilage of their ear pierced. "That's a highly effective strategy for preventing the problem."

www.medicalposting.ca

So you say you've finally accepted your son's tongue piercing and the rosebud tattoo on your daughter's shoulder.

Sure, I know. Accept is a very strong word. But you have stopped crying.

Now, square your shoulders and get set to buck up yet again.

More self-mutilation in the name of fashion could be on its way. And this time it's going to be really, really, really gross.

Seems the latest trend to hit the Netherlands (where else?) is jewelry for the eyeball.

The actual eyeball!

"Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewelry called 'JewelEye' in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an eye surgery and research and development institute in Rotterdam," Reuters news service reported last week.

The report was accompanied by a close-up photo of a woman whose eyeball had been enhanced (?) by a tiny heart-shaped jewel made of special materials.

The procedure to place the .13-inch jewel in the lining of the eyelid or eyeball is done under an operating microscope and local anesthesia and takes about 15 minutes. Costs between 500 and 1,000 euros.

Whatever you do Mom and Dad, DO NOT react to this new development in front of your teenager should she bring it to your attention.

One sign from you that this is totally unacceptable because it's dangerous and an insult to your every sensibility and she'll be in line for the procedure before you can reach for a Tylenol.

That's what happened with the tongue ring and the tattoo, right?

I know I'm jinxing myself, but we haven't dealt with a tattoo in our house. Yet. But piercing? Well, we're all over that fashion trend.

Our eldest came home from college her first year with a tiny diamond stud in her nose. Got it pierced at a "very cool" little shop in Greenwich Village, we learned.

"Breathe," my husband reminded me when the recently pierced nose made its way toward us on the train platform on her first visit home following the mutilation.

"Notice anything different?"

"Hmmm ... You cut your hair!" I answered.

Happily, that piercing didn't last long. Kept falling out and it looked like she was picking her nose when she'd work to reinsert it. Not the easy, breezy look she was going for.

Her dad and I thought we were in the clear after that. Then our son returned home from a beach stay with these opening words:


"Mom, Dad, what would you say if I pierced my eyebrow?"

"I'd say, I wished you hadn't," I groaned, turning to see the new hole. His dad kept staring straight ahead in the opposite direction.

"Don't worry, Mom. I asked the guy for his license. The boardwalk booth was really clean."

"Breathe," I told his dad, who wasn't moving.

The eyebrow thing was over in a few months, but there was no time to celebrate before the boy came home with his bottom lip pierced with a white gold hoop and ball.

About $85 worth of hoop and ball. Oh, God. How could I ever take him to visit his grandmother with THAT hanging off his face.

"Mom, don't be mad," he started. "I swear it was like a doctor's office."

His buddy's mom, one of my dearest friends, called that night.

"Kate, I just heard. I'm really sorry James was an accessory. I had no idea that's where they were going."

James had the good sense not to let a stranger poke another hole in his face. Just went along for moral support. I count him among my son's smart friends. I held him harmless. Hey, it wasn't a tattoo.

Later that same night, I got some satisfaction when The Lip took a drink of water and the liquid dribbled through the just-made hole.

"Girls are going to really dig that trick," I told him. He scowled and the gold gleamed.

To this day, the lip ring remains. But I'm in no big hurry to see it gone. Mostly because I fear what will be next.

I pray he and his sister don't hear about the eyeball thing. Reports say the Rotterdam center already has a waiting list for the new must-have accessory.

Maybe I should be more proactive and get a JewelEye first. You know. Make it mainstream. That'd immediately thwart the trend in our house.

Mom thinks it's OK? Never mind then.

Hey, maybe James would come with me.

www.phillyburbs.com

DeKALB - Even though he's a professional body piercer, Kenny Weinstock doesn't want to hurt anybody.

"I'm not here to scar people up," Weinstock said. "I'm here to enhance the way people look."

Interestingly, Weinstock be-came a piercer after becoming tired of seeing people suffer.



Coming from a medical background, Wein-stock started working in the surgical unit at Kishwaukee Community Hospital.

"People seemed like they were dying a lot, and I kind of got tired of that," he said.

Looking for a new job within the hospital, Weinstock settled on a position in the phlebotomy lab. It was Weinstock's job to draw blood and take samples from patients.

Before he knew it, Wein-stock was back working around the patients in the emergency room. He was once again seeing those who were living their last minutes.

Weinstock left the hospital all together.



Out of work, Weinstock visited a friend who ran a tattoo and body-piercing shop in Rockford.

"He said, 'you'd probably be good for piercing because you have a medical background,'" he recalled.

Weinstock de-cided to give it a try. He enrolled in classes in Madison, Wis., where he also did an apprenticeship.

"It came really easy for me," Weinstock said. "The third day I was being taught, I was like 'hey, give me that needle and let me do what I got to do.'"

His first job was a navel piercing. Weinstock remembers it being much like his first time drawing blood at the hospital.

Weinstock admitted to being scared and breaking out into a sweat both times.

Through the learning process, there were other times Weinstock had to overcome challenges. However, most of those were philosophical.

"I think the roughest part of learning this art is that it isn't accepted," Weinstock said. "Even my friends at first were going, 'Kenny, what are you doing?'"

After a lot of soul searching, Weinstock decided this was what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be a professional body piercer.

Weinstock does piercing at his shop, Out On A Whim, 127 E. Lincoln Highway. However, Weinstock didn't always have his own shop.



During the early days of his career, Weinstock made piercing house calls. Cus-tomers would call his cell phone and he'd take his equipment to where they were.

"I didn't feel comfortable walking into some of the settings I was walking into," Weinstock said.

He eventually quit taking calls and started working for other shops. Out On A Whim was opened in 2001.

Today, Weinstock said he does 30 to 40 piercings a day.

"For every good one you do, you get 10 more," he said. "For every bad one you do, you lose 100."

At Out On A Whim, Weinstock offers every kind of piercing - from ears to genitals. One of the only styles he won't do is surface piercing, which involves poking the skin in random areas, such as the back of the neck. Weinstock said that type of piercing can scar easily.

Throughout the years, Weinstock has developed a technique to relax his customers.

"You have to be calm, cool and be really open," he said.

This is important considering the nervousness of his customers and the need to get the piercing straight.

"One out of five navels passes out cold every time," Weinstock said about those getting their navels pierced.

Weinstock is a pretty normal looking guy. He doesn't have any visible piercings or tattoos. In fact, he's only been pierced twice - once through the upper cartilage of his ear and once through his penis, which he did himself.

From the moment a customer walks in the door, Weinstock starts his evaluation. If it's a group of people, he picks the most nervous to go first.

Once the customer is in his chair, Weinstock asks a series of questions and talks to the person in such a way that he often forgets he is getting pierced.

"It's a performance," he said. "You have to put on a good performance every time."

Another part of his routine displays itself when young people ask for their first face piercings. Weinstock said he tries to talk them out of it because it is much more difficult to hide something on a face when visiting parents.

"I tell them 'Your mom's going to kill you, and your mom's going to kill me,'" he said.

One time a mother who was in town to pick up her daughter during a break at Northern Illinois University came into the shop.

Earlier in the year, Wein-stock had done a piercing just below the daughter's lower lip. At the time, Weinstock told the girl she shouldn't have it done. The girl insisted on continuing with the piercing.

Now, the mother showed up and was complaining about what Weinstock had done to her daughter.

"My first words were 'you ask your daughter; I tried to talk her out of it,'" Weinstock said.


www.daily-chronicle.com