Bizarre's third tattoo and body mod book, Body Art 3, is out now! Click here to order from Amazon

AGITATION
The act of deliberately irritating a wound left by a fresh branding, cutting or other scarification in order to make the resulting scar more raised, indented or coloured. Methods of agitation range from covering a wound with a bandage coated in petroleum jelly to stop scabs forming and extend healing time, to repeatedly removing scabs with wire wool or a toothbrush, to ash rubbing or ink rubbing. Care must be taken to keep wounds scrupulously clean as agitation can increase the risk of infection. See also: hypertrophic scarring.

APOTEMNOPHILIA
The erotic desire to become or look like an amputee, even if your body is healthy and an amputation is not medically required. In its strongest form, this can lead to a condition known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, in which a person begins to detest their ‘complete’ body and believe they’d be happier and ironically more ‘whole’ with a limb, digit, or other part removed. Apotemnophiliacs sometimes undergo nullification to achieve their wishes.

ASH RUBBING
After cutting or skin peeling, ash can be rubbed into wounds as a form of agitation. This increases scarring and can also add colour, although usually in a patchy, non-uniform way. Ash rubbing sometimes holds emotional significance, e.g. if the cremated remains of a loved one are used, or it is performed as part of a tribal ritual.

BODY HACKTIVISM
A term coined by leading body mod figure Lukas Zpira, ‘body hacktivism’ is a philosophical movement. It holds that ideas of self-awareness, ownership of one’s own body, and evolution beyond apparent biological barriers can be explored via the advancement of body modification practices. As body hacktivism is a way of thinking, ‘body hackers’ don’t necessarily have to be modded themselves. The movement places great emphasis on pushing the science of modification forward by experimenting with new medical techniques and technology, and is influenced by manga culture, comics, science fiction films and literature. Contrast with the ancient influences of modern primitives.

BODY SUIT
A tattoo that covers the torso completely or even the entire body, frequently using just one consistently-themed design, e.g. inked icon The Enigma sports a head-to-toe body suit of blue jigsaw pieces. In some cultures body suits represent social standing, or mark an event such as marriage.  

BLACKING OUT
Tattooing over an area of skin with black ink until it’s a solid block of colour. This is sometimes done to cover up previous work. Decoration can be added on top of blacked-out skin by cutting, branding or skin peeling – resulting scars stand out as white or pink against the black, and can even then be tattooed over again with a different colour.

BLACK WORK
Tattoos done in black ink only, often depicting tribal-style designs.

BLOW OUT
If a piercing is stretched too quickly or gets knocked, the pressure can force an extra ‘lip’ of flesh to squeeze out around one edge of the jewellery, called a blow out. These are common in people who increase the size of their flesh tubes or plugs too swiftly or wear ones which are too heavy for their earlobes to bear. They can be solved by downsizing jewellery and allowing the body to reabsorb the blown out tissue. For a quicker fix or in bad cases, removal is possible via methods such as diathermic cutting. Blow outs are mostly painless, but not considered aesthetically pleasing; however, sometimes they can feel unpleasantly tingly.

BRANDING
A form of scarification in which the skin is marked by burning it with heat or electricity. A small number of modders have also experimented with ‘cold branding’, created by dipping a metal tool into liquid nitrogen and freezing a design into the epidermis. See also diathermic branding, electrocautery branding and strike branding.

CUTTING
A form of scarification in which the skin is marked by making incisions, usually with a surgical scalpel and to a depth of no more than 3mm. The skin is split but no tissue is removed – contrast with skin peeling. Cuttings can be agitated to affect how scars form.

DERMAL PUNCH
A round ‘cookie cutter’ needle that removes a disc of skin.

DERMAL SEPARATOR
A small, blunt, spatula-type instrument inserted into an incision and used to lift up the skin layers to create a ‘pocket’ into which jewellery or implants can be inserted.

DIATHERMIC CUTTING AND BRANDING aka ELECTROSURGERY BRANDING, LASER BRANDING, HYFRECATOR BRANDING
Diathermic machines are used to create brands by passing a high frequency current directly into the skin via a pen-type instrument. They can also be used to cut off small pieces of flesh like blow outs by running the pen over the same area multiple times. They’re used to cauterise wounds in hospitals, where the Hyfrecator is a popular brand of electrosurgical unit, hence the technique’s other nicknames. ‘Laser branding’ is an additional, misleading term that was coined by mod master Steve Haworth as a gimmick; in fact, no lasers are involved. Diathermy is considered one of the most superior forms of branding; because electricity is passed into the skin rather than heat, tissue damage does not ‘spread’ beyond where the pen touches the body, allowing for far more intricate designs than those possible with strike or electrocautery branding. It’s also more comfortable for the artist, because the pen doesn’t get hot in their hand.

EAR POINTING
The process by which a wedge of tissue is cur from the top of the ear and the two edges are sewn together to produce a pointed, elfin look.

ELECTROCAUTERY BRANDING
Electrocautery machines pass an electric current through a pen-shaped electrode to make it red hot. The electrode is then applied to skin to create a brand. This method is more accurate than strike branding, but still uses heat, which travels through the skin and damages tissues beyond the point of contact; this results in branded marks ‘spreading’ to become around three times their initial width. Such spreading does not occur with diathermic branding.
    
FLESH TUNNEL
Hollow tube-shaped jewellery worn in stretched piercings. Contrast with plugs.

GAUGE QUEEN
A derogatory or joking term for someone fixated with stretching their piercings, or who shows off their stretched holes in an effort to look cool.

HAND-POKED TATTOO aka HAND-TAPPED TATTOO
A tattoo created without the use of a modern electric gun. Instead, ink is inserted into the dermis by manually ‘tapping’ or ‘poking’ with a needle, or sharpened stick, animal bone or clay disc. Hand-poked tattooing methods may be chosen for ritualistic reasons (see modern primitives), but are also favoured by some artists for facial tattooing as they are quieter and do not involve vibrating machinery, so can offer a more comfortable, controlled experience in such a delicate area.

HYPERTROPHIC SCARRING
Scarring that’s heavy but does not extend past the original site of the wound – contrast with keloid scarring. Hypertrophic scars can be desirable if they emerge at the site of branding, cutting or skin peeling, and can be encouraged to form by agitation. They’re less aesthetically pleasing if they form around piercing holes, where they take the form of shiny pimple-like lumps. They should not be squeezed, but can sometimes be removed by taking out jewellery and/or applying treatments such as compresses, tea tree oil or steroids.  

INK RUBBING
After cutting or skin peeling, ink can be rubbed into wounds to colour them. Absorbtion can be encouraged by ‘holding in’ the ink with a layer of petroleum jelly applied immediately afterwards. Results are unpredictable.

KELOID SCARRING
Fibrous, raised scars that extend far beyond the original site of the wound – contrast with hypertrophic scarring, which is far more common. The body’s tendency to keloid is genetic, and darker-skinned people are more prone to it. Like hypertrophic scars, keloids can be the positive result of deliberate scarification, or an unfortunate by-product of piercing. Undesired keloids can itch, smell, or feel uncomfortable, and although steroid treatment is possible, they often have to be surgically removed.

METAL MOHAWK
Single or multiple rows of transdermal implants placed on the scalp in a mohawk style, as famously sported by body mod legend Samppa Von Cyborg.

MICRODERMAL IMPLANT aka SURFACE ANCHOR
A miniature form of transdermal implant which allows a decorative ball, gem or charm around 5mm in diameter to be screwed into a tiny base anchored beneath the skin. Because of their small size, the method of insertion for microdermals is much simpler than for transdermals; an incision is made using a needle or dermal punch, then the base of the jewellery itself is used to create the ‘pocket’ in which it will sit beneath the skin. Microdermals have a relatively low rate of rejection.

MIGRATION
Movement of an implant or piercing caused by the body rejecting it. It’s possible for mods to migrate some distance without fully rejecting; after initially pushing jewellery out, the body can eventually accept it, and the mod heals in a slightly different place to where it was originally inserted.

MODERN PRIMITIVE
Body modders who live in developed countries but look to ancient tribal rituals and ‘primitive’ practices as inspiration. Contrast with the futuristic thinking of body hacktivism.  

NULLIFICATION
The voluntary amputation of a body part, e.g. a toe, finger, tooth, nipple, limb, penis (a penectomy) or testicles (castration). Nullification can be undertaken as a fun experiment (e.g. the modder who had his nipples removed and cast in resin plugs), to correct a mistake (e.g. earlobes ruined by extreme blow outs or thinning can be removed), or because of apotemnophilia or a similar unusual body image.

PIERCING THINNING
If a piercing is stretched too fast or with heavy weights, or the hole was originally made in a poor off-centre location, tissue doesn’t stretch evenly and weak ‘thin’ spots can develop. Sometimes these even break, and require reconstruction by scalpelling and/or stitching.

PLAY PIERCING
Temporary piercings undertaken solely for sensory reasons, to induce the adrenaline rush that occurs when the skin is punctured rather than create a lasting modification. Play piercings are usually made with hypodermic needles, sometime arranged in eye-catching patterns or laced together with ribbons, and can be used within performance, ritual, as part of BDSM games or to wean self-harmers away from cutting themselves.

PLUG
Solid disc- or cylinder-shaped jewellery worn in stretched piercings. Contrast with flesh tunnels.

POCKETING aka ANTI-PIERCINGS
In a piercing, the middle of the jewellery is submerged within flesh and the two ends stick out either side as decoration. Pocketing is the opposite: the two ends of a curved bar are buried in the flesh in ‘pockets’ made with a dermal separator, and the decorative middle bar sits on the skin surface. Pocketings often reject for the same reasons as surface piercings.

REJECTION
What happens when the body decides that it does not like having a foreign object like a piercing or implant inside it, and ‘rejects’ it by pushing it out through the skin as it would a splinter, often leaving a scar. See also: migration.

SCARIFICATION
The deliberate creation of decorative scars via methods such as cutting, skin peeling or branding. Some modders have also experimented with using caustic chemicals to create scars, but this is very difficult to do in a safe, controlled manner and the resultant markings tend to be messy.

SKIN PEELING aka Skin removal, skinning, tissue removal
A form of scarification in which the outlines of a design are cut into the flesh, then the skin within the outlines is removed in small sections by pinching it up with a small clamp, pulling it back, and using a scalpel to slice underneath it so the skin peels away from the body. Contrast with cutting.

STRETCHING
Increasing the size of a piercing or implant by inserting increasingly larger or heavier jewellery. In addition, pierced holes can also be stretched by pushing through a tapered rod,  and earlobes can be stretched by taking out plugs or flesh tunnels, wrapping PFTE or bondage tape around them to increase their diameter, then reinserting. Stretching with weights is not recommended as it can cause piercing thinning, as can stretching too fast, which may also result in blow outs.

STRIKE BRANDING
The most basic form of branding, which involves heating a piece of metal and applying it to the skin. The metal may be a single line applied several times in different places to form a pattern, or it may be moulded into a shape that needs to be applied only one, e.g. a star. Because heat spreads through the skin and damages surrounding tissues as well as those touched by the metal directly, a line made by strike branding will spread to around four times its original size; marks made this way are thick and can look clumsy, and attempts at small  designs can end up as blobs. Diathermic branding is recommended for intricate work.

SUBDERMAL IMPLANT
A 3D implant placed entirely under the skin to create a decorative raised ‘sculpture’ on the surface. Examples include horns, beads, heart, ring and star shapes, and rows of short cylinders arranged to give a ribbed effect. Subdermal implants are largely made from silicone or Teflon (PTFE), although in theory any biocompatible material may be used; mod masters such as Steve Haworth are beginning to experiment with coral, which they speculate could be calcified and assimilated by the body, so over time the implant would become an organic feature made of bone with blood vessels growing though it. Subdermals are inserted by first making an incision in the skin, then poking a dermal separator into the cut horizontally to create a ‘pocket’ which the implant is slid into before the wound is sutured up. This method means that the incision can be made a significant distance away from the implant’s final location, e.g. forehead implants can be pushed through tunnel-shaped pockets extending from entrance cuts hidden in the hairline, giving a neater finish with no visible scars. Subdermals can be stretched by re-opening incisions and switching to larger implants.
 
SURFACE PIERCING
A piercing that passes through the surface of a flat area of skin, so the entrance and exit holes are on the same plane. Surface piercings are notoriously difficult to heal and often reject, because the jewellery puts a great deal of pressure on the tissue holding it in, and even more stress occurs whenever the skin moves. Best results may be achieved by custom bending a metal bar to fit the desired location on an individual’s body.

TATTOO GUN SCARIFICATION aka ETCHING
A form of scarification in which the skin is ‘tattooed’ with an electric gun, but without using ink, so the needled area heals to form a faint but accurate scar design. Sometimes the machine tip is dipped in a mild abrasive to rub off extra tissue.

TONGUE SPLITTING aka TONGUE BIFURCATION, TONGUE FORKING
The procedure by which the tongue is laterally split in half up to the point where it joins to the base of the mouth, giving a ‘forked’ effect. This may be done with a scalpel, cautery tool, or laser. It’s also possible to pass a loop of thread through an existing tongue piercing and tie it so tight that it cuts the tongue in two over time, although this is a dangerous and unreliable process. Modders with bifurcated tongues can frequently learn to move both halves independently, and speech and taste are not usually affected in the long term.

TRANSDERMAL IMPLANT
An implant which is rooted within the body but (unlike a fully-enclosed subdermal implant) has a threaded section which protrudes through the skin surface, onto which decorative jewellery such as spikes or beads may be screwed. Transdermals are usually made from metal such as titanium, and the flat base which anchors them below the skin often has holes in it designed so that scar tissue grows through and helps keep the implant in place. The method of insertion is the same as for subdermals, except an additional exit hole for the thread to poke out from is made using a scalpel or dermal punch. Transdermals carry a high risk of infection, rejection or bad scarring, and only about 20% are successful over a long term period. See also: metal mohawk, microdermal implant.