Piercing Pictures

Piercings can range from the nearly commonplace nose ring to more exotic surface piercings. No matter where your body piercing is located, one thing unites all piercings - the desire to bring your body art into three dimensions.

Mouth piercings are popular, but pose special risks. One of the biggest dangers of mouth piercings is the damage to teeth that can come from bumping them against a piercing. There is also a fairly high risk of infection in this area from bacteria that gets trapped on food. While tongue piercings are fairly painless, lip piercings can carry some pain and both areas will swell temporarily, leading to a slight speech impediment.

If you want to go for the unusual, you may want to consider a bridge piercing. This surface piercing extends through the skin at the top of your nose, between your eyes. Surface piercings don't have a higher pain rate than other piercings. They do, however, do have a higher rejection rate, so your new piercing may not last as long as it would in another area.

Take your standard ear piercing to a new level by stretching your ear lobe. Stretching is done incrementally by inserting larger and larger discs into the lobe. The process isn't too painful, but can take months to years to complete.

There are numerous areas you can place a mouth or lip piercing, including in the philtrum - the area directly above the upper lip. A philtrum piercing is prone to infections as it heals, because of the bacteria in the mouth, but is no more painful than most other mouth piercings. It may make your eyes water when it's done, depending on your nerve placement in this area.

Men and women can sport piercings on one or both nipples. The pain of a piercing in this area depends largely on how sensitive your nipples area; those with very sensitive nipples report feeling more pain than those with less sensitive chests.

The navel piercing is fairly popular with women who like the idea of three-dimensional body art. The piercing itself can be fairly painful as the skin in this area is dense, and the piercing can take up to a year to heal after it's done.

The eyebrow is one of the least painful spots to get a facial piercing, because there are few nerves close to the surface there. This surface piercing can reject easily however, and you may find it starting to migrate as early as seven months in.

The Monroe piercing is a facial piercing designed to look like Marilyn Monroe's iconic birthmark. In reality, it is a mouth piercing and subject to the same care challenges and risk of infection as other mouth piercings.

If you go in for multiple piercings, consider using symmetry to enhance the design. Using two of each piercing type gives balance to the face.

Another unusual surface piercing is the wrist piercing. Like all surface piercings, the wrist is one of the less painful places to get a piercing, but also one of the fastest to reject the jewelry, even after you think it's healed.