My Theories On Girl's Facial Piercings.

(Originally posted on 3-24-2010)

So I've been thinking about gauging my ears for a long time but I'm a cheap (and poor) bastard so it hasn't happened. I'm thinking of just going up to a 10g which will be easy since I'm already at a 16g.

Either way, this got me thinking about facial piercings. I don't want any facial piercings but I do find it interesting how the right or wrong facial piercing can really affect the way someone looks hence I formulated theories on what types of faces can work with what types of facial piercings. This particular set of theories only works on chicks. I might come up with a dude one later.

I remember once a friend of mine said she wanted to pierce her eyebrow and I responded with, "No, you'll ruin your face." That isn't to say that eyebrow piercings are bad or that I don't like them, it just wouldn't have worked for her in particular.

First off, Ears and Tongue are fine on everyone. They don't affect the way your face itself is perceived but they are a good way of expressing yourself. You can really do a lot of stuff to your ears.

Nose: While this was once an edgy look it has pretty much become commonplace amongst any type of girl (or at least the stud has; the ring holds some more weight). This is a piercing that works best purely if you have a well-formed or petite nose and since a lot of people have one, that's probably why this is so common. If you have a large or bumpy nose, this has a tendency to enhance that (I could never get one; from the side it's like a scary sledding ramp). However, it can also be a pretty accessory on a nice nose.

Lip: This one is not based on how your lips look but how your overall face works. The lip piercing looks best on girls with kind of uniformly sized, "sweet" features (i.e. large eyes and lips, smallish nose, maybe a round/oval face) or girls with a really edgy look (prominent cheekbones or jawline, almond eyes, etc.). Here's why: on a "sweet" face the piercing gives the wearer an extra, modern edge to very classic features. On an edgy face, it plays up the edginess and just fits right in. Any face not on these two dramatic sides of the spectrum is drowned out by the piercing. You also usually want to have lips that are uniform or maybe a bit larger than your other features.

Eyebrow: The eyebrow piercing looks best on girls without uniformly sized features. That doesn't mean she has to look average; she just has to have features that are all over the place in scale with each other (i.e. let's say she has a large nose, cheekbones, and small eyes; she doesn't fit into a category like the two types I listed in "lip" because her features are all over the place in scale). On a girl with features that easily compliment each other, the eyebrow piercing looks like a mistake and that's probably the explanation for the story above.
I also think the logic behind eyebrow piercings is somewhat concurrent with the logic behind eye make-up. On a face with small eyes, an eyebrow piercing will draw attention to that area but on a face with large eyes, you will be unable to see anything but the piercing because the eyes stand out naturally without any sort of adornment.

Monroe: This works on any girl who is averagely, conventionally pretty. Essentially, this could work on maybe 75% or more of the girls you pass on the street. However, personality wise this one wouldn't work for everyone. Also, the "sweet" faced girl, probably shouldn't do it unless their goal is to look as stereotypically 1950s as humanly possible.

Septum, Labert, Medusa: I'm a little biased about this one because I don't think these piercings enhance anything EXCEPT that they do make you look edgier but this is not always in a positive way. I know a lot of hipsters with septum piercings and it just makes them look silly. Although, one of my friends has a septum piercing that looks fine on her and she would fall into the childish, "sweet" face type so it mostly just makes her look "not so sweet." You need an upper lip area that is not notably small.
Labret piercings can have a really profound effect on the way a face looks because they are so centrally located so I find that they look least intrusive on faces that are already full of harsh lines or angular. On rounder faces they are way too pronounced. On "sweet" faces they come off as someone who is trying very hard to project a different image than what they were born with.
Medusa piercings include both the upper lip rule in the septum paragraph and the central location rule in the labret paragraph so they are theoretically the hardest to pull off.

Bridge: I'd be very happy to never see this piercing again. It looks bad on everyone. There's barely any edge to it either because it just looks incorrect.

Snakebites: Kind of the same as lip but this is more like septum/labret in that it is instant edgy and can sometimes more so distract than enhance (but hey, I do think they can look pretty freaking cool).

Cheek: Really just says that you ran out of places to pierce (and you don't mind potentially getting caught on things) if you do a ring. There are some nice stud cheek piercings out there (dimple, butterfly, teardrop, crow's feet) but you really need your whole face to work with it in particular the area around where you put it. Generally other rules above can be applied based on where the piercing is going.