Labret piercing
| Labret | |
|---|---|
|
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| location | Upper / lower lip |
| Jewellery | Labret Plug, Ball Closure Ring, Circular Barbell Jewelry Note |
| Healing time | Four to eight weeks of advice on healing time |
| ‣ Topic overview | |
A labret piercing ( lat. Labrum , lip) is a piercing in the area of the lips . In a narrower sense, it refers to a piercing of the lower lip. Piercings of the upper lip are also known as Madonna or Medusa piercings .
term
The name Labret is derived from the Latin labrum , which means "lip". The piercing is often pronounced in French as lɪbreɪ , but the correct pronunciation is leɪ.brɛt , with a sharp final syllable. The term first appeared in the ethnological literature of the 19th century.
Traditionally, all piercings that are in the area of the lips were called labret piercings. It was not until later that the convention emerged to only use this name for piercings of the lower lip , while other names for piercings in other parts of the mouth area were established.
History and culture
The labret piercing can look back on a long history and was, or is still, traditionally an integral part of the culture of different ethnic groups in Africa , Asia and Latin America , whereby jewelry with a particularly large diameter is often worn.
Ring jewelery, similar to how it established itself as a fad in western culture at the end of the 20th century, was previously only known to the Nuba living in Sudan and the Dogon in Mali and was created there with a religious background. Often, however, widened lip studs were also used with the intention of making the women of the respective people appear unattractive to the men of the neighboring tribes. The modifications later developed into the ideal of beauty, despite the original aim of deterring their own tribesmen .
North pacific
With the Unangan , the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands , a chain of islands in the North Pacific , wearing a labret was widespread until colonization . The ceremonial circumstances of the piercing procedure varied from island to island. In some areas the piercing was reserved for men, in others for women, while in other tribes the piercing was worn by both sexes. It was also sometimes part of an initiation rite or was engraved for a wedding , comparable to a wedding ring . Walruses were considered sacred animals by the Unangan , so the shape of the jewelry often imitated walrus teeth. The earliest reports of the Unangan's labret piercing date back to 1741. After contact with Christian missionaries who were opposed to body jewelry, the tradition of the labret disappeared among the Aleutians.
America
The labret piercing is also widespread among various indigenous peoples of South America. It was known to the Aztecs , Mochica and Inca and is believed to have originated from the Olmec culture . The lip jewelry was worn there by men of higher social classes and was partly made of gold and gemstones. The jewelry used was called "tentel", which means something like "lip stone".
The Zo'é -Indianern in Brazil , even lip plug Indians called carry both men and women up to 15 centimeters long lip plugs with diameters of up to four centimeters. They can be stung with monkey bones and are used in small sizes at around eight years of age. A lip plug is mandatory for the Zo'é to be accepted as a tribal member.
Stretched lip piercings with inserted lip plates are also common in Brazil among the botocuds , the kayapo and the men of the Suyá .
In the more matriarchal society of the Yanomami , children sometimes wear not only a septum stick but also up to three symmetrically arranged labret piercings in the lower lip. Similar labret pens were also worn by the Karajá , who also lived in Brazil .
The Pataxó , an Indian tribe in the Brazilian state of Bahia , as well as the Bororo from southern Mato Grosso and the state of Goiás in Bolivia also wore jewelry in the septum and lips and widened holes in their ears , some of them still today . The Akuntsu Indian tribe from the Brazilian state of Rondônia wore labret piercings in both the lower and upper lip, which in this combination could nowadays be called Cyberbite piercing.
In northern Canada , Alaska and neighboring regions, labret piercings and larger plates in the lips were common among indigenous peoples such as the Eskimos and the Tlingit . As jewelry materials there next bone and wood were also obsidian , walrus - ivory and shells of abalone used. However, this traditional form of body modification disappeared from their culture during the 20th century.
Among the inhabitants of Nunivak Island , also in Alaska, women wore labret piercings with pearl necklaces attached, often in combination with septum piercings .
Africa
In Africa, piercings in the lower lip of peoples such as the Nyangatom , the Kichepo , the Makonde , the Mursi , the Sara or the Surma were and are still partly worn and often widened in order to be able to insert lip plates . The lips are not always pierced beforehand, but often incised. This form of jewelry is worn exclusively by women in Africa. In addition to religious and aesthetic reasons, jewelry can also express a man's claim to property of a woman among certain peoples. The man often changes his wife's lip himself.
Among the Kololo women wear discs in their upper lip, so-called "pelele", which according to reports by the African explorer David Livingstone happens for aesthetic reasons, as a tribal chief is said to have explained to him. According to Kololo's understanding, the man has a beard growth as a decorative element, the woman, on the other hand, lacks natural beauty features, which is why the lip washer represents an optical upgrade.
Among the Kara , a people in Ethiopia , in addition to body paintings, scar tattoos and artistically designed hair and head ornaments, nails or flowers in the lower lip have established themselves as decorative elements for both men and women . The Dessanech have feathers in their lower lip.
The Turkana and Pokot in Kenya wear lip pegs in the lower lip. The Topsoa in Southern Sudan and in southern Burkina Faso and northern Ghana and the Ivory Coast living Lobi also carry greater stakes in the upper lip. The wearing of lip piercings is also common among the Nyangatom living in Ethiopia .
Western culture
In the western culture, lip piercing became particularly established in the 1990s and is often a fashionable component of various sub- and youth cultures , for example in the techno scene , the punk movement or emos .
Heavily flared labrets or lip plates have also been worn within Western culture since the end of the 20th century, but only as an extremely rare peripheral phenomenon, mostly among adherents of the Modern Primitive movement.
Jewellery
Special labret plugs are particularly suitable for use in modern labret piercings. These have a small plate on one side and a thread for screwing on a locking ball or various jewelry objects on the other end. They are available in different lengths and mostly with a material diameter of 1.2 or 1.6 millimeters. For the first time in a newly pierced piercing, plugs with excess lengths are usually used temporarily, as swelling of the lip usually occurs.
But also is often captive bead ring or circular barbell ( Engl. : Horseshoe ) are used. With the latter, the locking balls are in the optimal position of the jewelry at one end on the outside of the stitch channel and at the other end on the red lip.
Labret jewelry for widened diameters is usually custom-made.
Implementation and healing
As with other piercings, the skin area to be pierced is first disinfected. Then the puncture site is marked, fixed with a clamp and a special needle pierced ( see piercing a piercing ).
Depending on whether a ring or a labret plug is worn for the first time, the puncture canal develops at a corresponding angle during the healing process. It is possible to change both jewelry variants afterwards, but a straight plug sits less comfortably in an angled stitch channel than curved jewelry.
It takes about four to eight weeks for the piercing to heal. As with all piercings in the mouth area, it is advised not to smoke for several hours after the piercing and not to consume alcohol for 12 to 24 hours. Some piercers also recommend not consuming any foods containing lactic or fruit acid for a period of two weeks. The healing process is significantly accelerated in the mouth area, as it is a mixture of mucous membrane tissue.
Problems
In the past, lip plugs often damaged the gums and tooth enamel. This risk was minimized by using a connector made of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), as this material is relatively soft and does not exert a great mechanical effect. However, these plugs have to be replaced more frequently because they wear out faster due to the relatively soft material.
In the case of swelling, it is possible that the plate of the labret plug grows into the lip or is completely enclosed by the surrounding connective tissue. The jewelry can rarely grow into the lip. This usually only happens with newly pierced piercings with plugs that are too short. By and large, problems are very rare. In these cases, it is recommended to remove the piercing and allow the wound to heal. This does not cause any serious problems.
When shaving , complications and injuries can occur if the razor or safety razor gets caught on the jewelry. As a preventive measure, the jewelry is therefore removed beforehand if the puncture canal has healed.
Wearing braces on the labret piercing can also be problematic if the device gets caught in the jewelry or the skin, especially the puncture canal, is stressed by frequent friction.
In the case of particularly large jewelry, such as the lip pegs or lip plates common among various indigenous peoples, permanent pressure usually results in a deformation of the lower jaw, which over time adapts to the jewelry in a circular manner. The teeth holding apparatus can be permanently damaged, which can lead to loosening or loss of the front incisors.
Arrangement and variations
The labret piercing is usually worn centrally or offset in the lower lip. Especially among indigenous peoples, it is still customary today to widen or cut the piercings up to several centimeters and to use plugs , pegs or, as can be seen especially with African and Brazilian ethnic groups, lip plates . (see history and culture )
A labret piercing that is located directly at the corner of the mouth is called a dahlia piercing . It is usually worn symmetrically on both sides. The name refers to the murder victim Elizabeth Short , better known as "The Black Dahlia", who got the corners of her mouth cut into a Glasgow smile by her killer .
If a labret piercing is placed as far down as possible near the tooth root, it is called a lowbret . This compound is made up of the English term low and labret. It can also be pricked vertically so that the canal protrudes at the lower edge of the jaw. This variant is called a vertical lowbret . Usually two symmetrically attached vertical low boards are worn on both sides. The counterpart to this is the nick piercing . It is located on the top of the upper lip and emerges on the cheeks below the eye area. This piercing is considered to be particularly risky as there is a risk of damaging the trigeminal nerve when performing it .
Other common piercings in the mouth area are the cheek piercing , the tongue piercing , the tongue fringe piercing , the lip frenulum piercing and the rare mandible piercing , which sits vertically in the lower jaw area below the tongue and emerges on the underside of the chin.
Medusa piercing
If a labret piercing is placed exactly in the middle above the upper lip through the philtrum , the vertical groove between the upper lip and the nose, it is called a Medusa piercing . A labret plug is usually used as piercing jewelry.
Since there are so many nerves at this point, it is often more painful than other lip piercings. It was traditionally worn by the Brazilian Akuntsu tribe .
Madonna piercing
A labret piercing on the side above the upper lip is called a Madonna piercing (also Monroe piercing or Chrome Crawford ). It runs through muscle tissue, which is why more pronounced swelling is possible after the sting. The names of the piercings go back to the pop singer Madonna , the model Cindy Crawford and the actress Marilyn Monroe , who wear or have had a beauty mark at this point . The variant emerged in the mid-1990s and was first made known by Rayna Foss-Rose, bassist in the band Coal Chamber . It has become quite popular in recent years. Numerous celebrities such as Travie McCoy , Mutya Buena , Ashley Massaro and Amy Winehouse had the jewelry used.
An unusual variant of the modern Madonna piercing was traditionally worn by the Matis , an indigenous people of Brazil. Thicker pins or smaller pegs are pierced through the area in the upper mouth area where the upper lip grows together with the gums. The jewelry stands out next to the nose.
Piercings in red lips
Different piercing variants run right through the red lips. In the case of a vertical labret piercing, also called Eskimo , the stitch channel begins below the lip and emerges again on the lip in the red lip. There is a certain risk of continuous tearing of the red lips. Usually a curved barbell is used instead of a labret connector. With this variant, the dental apparatus cannot be damaged as the jewelry does not come into contact with the gums and teeth. The healing time for an Eskimo piercing is around four weeks. A visually similar effect can be achieved with a labret piercing that is usually done by wearing a curved barbell.
Similar to the Eskimo piercing, the jestrum piercing sits on the red lip of the upper lip and emerges in the philtrum. The healing time of a newly pierced Jestrum is about two to six months, a little longer than that of the Eskimo.
An Ashley piercing , also called a racoon piercing , is led from the outside to the inside through the red lip, so that with a curved barbell when the mouth is closed, only a ball is visible directly on the lip.
The so-called lane piercing is a surface piercing that is pierced horizontally through the red lip of the lower lip. As with most surface piercings, there is also an increased risk that the jewelry will grow out of the fabric.
Multiple arrangements
A plurality of symmetrically arranged side by side or piercings in the lip area be as Bites (dt .: bites hereinafter). A distinction is made between the following arrangements:
- Angelbites / Whiskers - Two Monroe piercings symmetrically distributed on both sides of the upper lip
- Cyberbites - combination of a Medusa piercing and a central labret piercing in the lower lip
- Spiderbites - Two piercings placed side by side on one side of the lower lip
- Snakebites - Two labrets symmetrically distributed on either side of the lower lip
- Viperbites - Two piercings placed side by side on one side of the lower lip, spaced apart from each other
- Caninebites - A total of four piercings as a combination of angelbites and snakebites
- T-reXbites - Three labrets symmetrically distributed on both sides of the lower lip
- Shark-bites - Four lower lip piercings, two each on the left and two on the right
literature
- Grant R. Keddie: The Use and Distribution of Labrets on the North Pacific Rim . In: Syesis . tape 14 , 1981, ISSN 0082-0601 , pp. 59-80 .
Web links
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- ↑ a b Labrets and Lip Piercings - APA / BME News ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Body Piercing History ( Memento from April 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Cheyenne Morrison, The Piercing Temple, Australia 1998
- ↑ a b c d e A History of Body Piercing throughout Society
- ↑ a b Dr. Roland Garve: Tooth jewelry from foreign cultures . In: Zahnärztl Mitt Volume 98 (2008), pp. 26–32
- ↑ South America: the Zoé Planet Knowledge
- ↑ Yanomami Indians: The Fierce People?
- ^ Labrets Worn By Indians American Indians North of Mexico , Bureau of American Ethnology, 1907
- ^ Nunivak-Island Britannica
- ^ A brief history of body piercing in the UK ( Memento of March 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) tribalbodyart.co.uk
- ↑ "Nudity to Raiment" Hilaire Hiler London 1929
- ^ Lip Plates Have Reached The West ( June 19, 2009 memento in the Internet Archive ) Body Modification E-Zine
- ↑ Labret Piercing - Love to know
- ↑ Scallpelled Labret in the BMEzine Wiki
- ↑ Lowbert Piercing in BMEzine Wiki
- ↑ Vertical Lowbret Piercing in the BMEzine Wiki
- ↑ www.piercing-arten.de Madonna Piercing
- ↑ www.piercing-arten.de Jestrum piercing
- ↑ www.piercing-arten.de ( Memento from June 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Ashley Piercing
