HOULTON, Maine — At 50, a Houlton woman traded 19 years as a dog breeder to train as a body piercer for her daughter’s Houlton tattoo business.
Jia Rumi went all in for this mother/daughter gig at her daughter Dawn Crowe’s Water Street tattoo shop.
A year later Rumi is a certified body piercer and one of only a handful of state licensed piercers in northern Maine. She will soon be one of three certified Association of Professional Piercers in the state. The other two are at Black Maple in Windham.
“My daughter was like, we need to get a piercer for the shop,” Jia Rumi, now 51, said. “I said, ‘OK, do you have someone in mind?’ and she said, ‘You.’ I didn’t take her seriously at first.”
Becoming a body piercer was nothing Rumi ever considered, but with a bit of coaxing from her daughter, owner of Crowe’s Tattoos, she trained at an intensive 12-hour-a-day body piercing school in New Hampshire last spring.
“I attended class from seven to seven for seven days. [Now] I am a fully certified professional piercer,” Rumi said. “I just want to be really good at what I do. I can’t see myself doing anything else now. I totally love it.”
In Maine, a Department of Health and Human Services license is required for any person who practices the art of body piercing including the piercing of an ear, lip, tongue, nose or eyebrow.
The storied history of body piercings dates back to ancient Egypt and the earliest mummified remains. Throughout history, warriors have pierced septums and nipples before battle, women for beauty and ritual and some pierced bodies to ward off disease. Even William Shakespeare is seen in portraits with a gold hoop in his ear.
In America by the 1970s, hippies began piercing nostrils and the punk subculture followed with multiple, often symbolic piercings. By the 1990s, Christina Aguilera’s intimate piercings and Brittany Spears’ naval gems drew fans to mirror the pop stars’ body jewelry.
Today, piercings in a host of body locations are common in mainstream culture.
Certified body piercer training is extensive and far exceeds the skill of shopping mall piercers in earring shops, Rumi said.
She is currently taking first aid and CPR training, and to be certified also had to learn about bloodborne pathogens, sanitation and how to keep clients safe from infection. Other aspects of her training included choosing safe, high quality materials, aftercare and healing, client communication and ethics, problem solving, state regulations and how to run a successful piercing business.
Clients have fainted several times during a piercing, which is often due to low blood sugar. That’s why she always has food, drinks, sweets and even glucose tablets on hand for events like that, Rumi said.
Additionally, she learned about anatomy and different piercing techniques. For instance, a dermal piercing is a single-point piercing on the surface of the skin, unlike traditional piercings that have an entry and exit point. A small anchor is placed under the skin, which holds a decorative top on the surface. These can be placed almost anywhere on the body, offering a sleek look with options, she said.
“They are considered semipermanent, and removal can be done, but it is very uncomfortable and can leave a scar,” she added.
Nostrils, septums, tongues, eyebrows, upper ear cartilage, lobes, navals and nipples are the most popular sites for traditional piercings, with clients as young as 3 months old, she said. Some piercings, though, she won’t do on children because they are still growing.
As the only Houlton-area piercer, Rumi works Tuesday through Saturday by appointment because of the demand. Piercing prices range from $45 to $120 for more complex, intricate piercings, she said.
She uses an industrial-strength, so-called sharpass needle in varying gauges, depending on what area of the body she is piercing. And one thing is certain: To be a good piercer, you can’t hesitate, she said.
“The more you hesitate, the more pain you’re going to inflict on somebody,” she said.
In addition to body piercings, Rumi also sells body jewelry and offers tooth gem services.
For tooth gems, from a single tooth to a complete grill, she applies genuine Swarovski crystals — stars, flowers, circles — to the surface of teeth that last from three weeks to a year, depending on aftercare.
The process uses the same bonding material orthodontists use to apply braces to teeth, Rumi said. The application of a single gem is $60, two is $110 and it goes up from there. People like to have a gleam when they smile. It’s a trend in cities, and girls here want to feel pretty, too, she said.
For Rumi, it’s all about caring for each person and she makes sure before they leave her chair they understand their aftercare and how to make sure the piercing is healing properly, she said.
“I come across all walks of life and anyone who sits in my chair gets the special treatment,” she said. “They all get me.”
