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Body Art By Burning
Branding was most often used historically to mark property, most often livestock but also sometimes human. It was also utilized as a method of marking or punishing criminals both in Europe and Asia, and as recently as the founding US Pilgrim fathers.
In modern day body art, the technique is being explored as a way of making a monochromatic, permanent skin design which is more organic in line and color than what is created by tattooing.
about branding
What Branding Looks Like
I photographed the International Mr Leather convention in Chicago in 1992. There...
I found another of my photos from this session on a website recently:
Daemon and Raven still have Urban Primitives at this
Brands done by Myk E'Light. Cauterizing pen used.
OUCH!
Types of Branding
- Strike Branding - this is where a branding iron is made, heated and then pressed against the skin. DO NOT USE ANYTHING MADE FOR BRANDING ANIMALS, WOOD OR FOOD UNLESS YOU WANT A GIGANTIC BLOB OF SCAR TISSUE.
- Electro-Cautery Branding - this technique is done using a medical device originally designed to stop bleeding by sealing the bleeding blood vessels.
- Direct Fire Branding - this method involves putting something in direct contact with the skin and lighting it on fire so that it leaves burns.
Modern Discussions of Body Art Branding
The last book I actually contributed to, and it includes pictures of my own brandings.
Modern Primitives (Re/Search)
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ModCon: The Secret World Of Extreme Body Modification
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Tattoos - A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, and Annotated Research Guide to Internet References
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Branding Links and Info
- Multi-Strike and Electro-Cautery Branding
- Featuring branding, the deliberate use of burning for aesthetic body decoration. Includes multi-strike branding, electro-cautery method.
- Leg Branding
- I had 3 rings branded around my calf on September 3rd, 2000, Labor Day Weekend, with an electrocautery by Steve Haworth along with assistant Beki.
- Fakir Intensives - Basic Branding Course
- The Basic Branding Course is designed for those who wish to expand their skills in the Body Arts by learning "The Kiss of Fire".
- Aftercare from Infinite Body
- The healing of a branding goes through two stages: a initial healing period during which the skin is open and scabbing (2 - 6 weeks), and a longer period during which the scar tissue forms and stabilizes (2 - 12 months).
- NecroRogIcon » Blog Archive » My Branding
- I love my branding! I've wanted one for years, and when a friend said that she was learning how to brand and needed an initial 'victim' to test her skills on, I jumped at the opportunity.
- Branding
- Much as designs can be inked or cut into the skin, they can also be burned. Designed and executed by an experienced body artist, branding can produce subtle and organic body art designs.
Let Us Know What You Think Of Branding!
Branding Irons for Anything EXCEPT Humans
antiques and collectibles, cooking accessories, art and woodworking
None of these branding irons should be used on human skin. The nature of our flesh combined with several healing factors is such that to use any of these items will result in a huge blob of unrecognizable scar tissue and not an aesthetic design.
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Branding Q&A
I got the following question sent to me recently and thought I'd share my reply with all of you...Q: Is it safe to get branded right on your spine? Could it cause damage?
A: I would not recommend branding right over the spine at all. It really doesn't have enough meat and padding to support a brand well. And, since these are deliberate 3rd degree burns down into the middle skin layers, I personally would not brand someone right on their spine. On the off chance that an accident happened and a deeper burn occurred, it would be probably be lawsuit-level damage.
Brands are best done on the areas of the body that are flatter with more muscle and body fat. The shoulder blade area of the back is more suitable as it has much more muscle mass on it. Upper arms, thighs and calves are also good locations. Remember the more this area flexes and moves, or gets rubbed by clothing, the harder and more painful it is going to be to heal. And healing a brand takes forever compared to a tattoo.
To Brand or Not To Brand
How do you feel about branding?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byI really like branding
Genby says:
Ouch! Not for me... But if done well, art is art no matter what, each to their own, I'm a tattoo man myself :)
Posted July 08, 2009
AIM-9X says:
I just did a brand on my hip using a fine tipped soldering iron. This is my first one and I have no tatoos, so it's all sort of an experiment. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to make the first strike, but overall it was not nearly as bad as I'd prepared myself for. I think this has less to do with self expression and more to do with aesthetics. Wearing jewlrey isn't extreme is it? Being that this is my own skin, it's hardly more attention grabbing than a tatoo. At any rate, this one isn't fully healed, but if it takes well I might consider trying a bolder design in a more visible place.
Posted July 02, 2009
proppsta says:
i personally have 2 brands that i did myself and i think they are a more eunique way to express yourself, everybody has tatoos< dont get me wrong they are eunique in there own way, but i preffer branding and i plan on getting atleast two more
Posted June 26, 2009
scollroll says:
its bad ass, i got one and i love it, but i wish i woulda held it on longer bc it started to fade after a year or so. so hold it on longer than a second atleast. i did a quick sench.
Posted June 23, 2009
Jodie says:
I think its beautiful, it so much more interesting then tattoos
and not many people have them
i just made my oppointment for next week to get a dragon :)
Posted June 04, 2009
Getting burnt is not my idea of body art
CM says:
I am here for research. I am writing an essay on tattoos and one of my sub-topics is covering the different forms of tattooing. I have several tattoos myself and recently had my back piece finished, which covers half of my back. Although I love tattoos and I feel that everyone has a right to express themselves however they choose, I think human branding is very extreme and should not for the faint of heart. According to the research I have done, branding often takes twice as long as getting a traditional tattoo and is at least twice as painful.
Posted May 25, 2009
Kaos says:
I've always felt that "body art" which is not yet culturally "mainstream" is often more of a psychological than aesthetic statement. Women having their ears pierced has for sometime be accepted as something quite ordinary in Western Culture, just as facial scarification is quite ordinary in some African cultures. As such it is indicative of nothing more than a preference for a particular aesthetic or part of a cultural ritual, about as peculiar as male circumcision. Having met many individuals with more, uh... exotic body piercings, it is evident to me that it is not simply and always an aesthetic preference, but in many cases a statement about one's level of psychological development. Before anyone accuses me of claiming that some people's piercings mean they are not "normal" people, let me say that normal is a meaningless term since it assumes that "deviation" from some accepted norm is pathological. "Normal" is useless because it leaves no room for expressive individuality. On the other hand, the term "ordinary," in my experience, defines a line between what is common and what is uncommon, the uncommon often indicating a need to express individuality in ways that are regarded as oppositional, odd, peculiar, attention grabbing, etc. On closer examination a good many of such individuals choosing more extreme forms of body art appear to need some sort of external evidence of individuality to resolve an internal ambiguity or lack of confidence. Often, there is other corroborating evidence that such individuals find it difficult to think comfortably of themselves with an "ordinary everyday identity" and so they resort to extreme, painful or risky body modification (mortification, scarification, mutilation) to confirm or call attention to there individuality when in fact all of us are already special and quite unique, just like everyone else. I'm sure I'll take a lot of heat for suggesting that cultural definitions of "ordinary" say something about psychological development, and that "culturally extreme" forms of personal expression, including body "art" that is not ordinary, is often a way to compensate externally for validation by something visible and extreme, at least to intimates if not the general public, since it is not possible for them to accomplish this internally.If one looks at human development, what one finds is the gradual development of internal tolerance for resolving psychological difficulty and the abandonment of needing to engage the outside world to resolve an internal issue. What I am suggesting and which I do not expect to be a popular view here is that scarification in Western cultures, is not infrequently mutilation as a compensation, or, according to some authors, related to addictions since it may be accompanied by the release of endorphins to such a degree that the craving cannot be resisted. But I do wonder why it is that most individuals who will criticize my view, which is by no means absolute and serves only to demarcate a debatable spectrum, would not choose to brand their face. Neither would most agree that cutting off of the last third of one's pinky was defensible as an aesthetic choice any more than they would agree that someone insisting that amputating a limb or removing one's nose was simply consistent with a particular aesthetic. Before you start in with the heat, recognize that I believe there is a spectrum and that not everyone who chooses this form of expression is "extra-ordinary."
Posted March 14, 2009
by relache
Rae is a long-time body art enthusiast and tattoo collector, who's held Bellaonline's Body Art Editorship for seven years and facilitates Squidoo's In...
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