I love that whenever an odd piercing that works aesthetically is done, there are always a rapid-fire set of them that follow around the world. First we saw the ones from Massimo Cortese in Naples (who dubbed it the “Mantis”), and then not long afterward Pauly got them from Mateo Way (calling his “The Devil’s Threeway”), and now Luis Garcia has done a set, calling them simply “forward facing nostrils”. These are pictured here.

Brian Skellie reminded me that his wife Sandrine has had these piercings for over a decade (self-done), which I should have remembered when I met her back then here in Toronto (Caitlin is still mad at me because I let them smoke in my house but not her). Sandrine’s are the oldest that I can think of in the modern piercing scene. Each of these individuals wears the piercings slightly differently. Pauly and the Greek client fit them into a collection of very heavy facial work, Luis’s client balances them off of a pair of high nostrils, and Sandrine makes them work with the daintiest of beads — actually 1.5mm diamonds from NeoMetal. You wouldn’t think that such an odd piercing would be so aesthetically successful, but it is.

It should be noted that this piercing also has a solid pedigree in a number of indigenous societies.