A piercing attempt at the record books

Tamara Pachak is used to the staring. She knows that when she goes out, people notice - which was the idea in the first place. She's even grown accustomed to the two questions everyone seems to ask.

"Are they real?" and "Did it hurt?"

Pachak knows that when you have 20 navel rings, people tend to be curious.

"Everyone had bellybutton rings and I don't have the picture-perfect flat belly, so I decided to have more of them," Pachak said.

The Certified Nurses Assistant from Carson City has a star pattern of jeweled barbells working outward from her navel. The 20 on her stomach are only a portion of the 33 total piercings the 23-year-old wears.

Friday night, she was looking to add three more, in the hopes of setting a world record for most navel piercings.

"From my research, I couldn't find any record of it in the Guinness Book of World Records and the most I have ever seen is 12, so I am hoping to set it higher," Pachak said.

When it comes to her stomach and needles, Pachak only trusts one person, Lisa Hamrick-Varga of Spear Me in Carson City. Hamrick-Varga designed the star pattern and has put in each of the 20 piercings. Friday night, she was ready to add three more.

"We chose the star pattern because we could do a lot within that design and still keep it feminine. We use jeweled barbells that are custom fit for each piercing," Hamrick-Varga said.

Hamrick-Varga first measures the barbell and then places corresponding marks on Pachak's stomach. The new piercings will go on the outskirts of the star, elongating the design in three directions.

Once the skin is marked, Hamrick-Varga clamps a flap of the skin close together to shorten the distance the 14-gauge stainless steel needle will have to travel through flesh.

"The worst part is the clamping, that hurts worse than the needle," Pachak said. "The first ones I had done didn't hurt as much, but the farther out you go, the worse it hurts because there's actual skin and nerve endings."

A deep breath, and the needle goes through, followed by the barbell and Pachak now has 21 navel piercings.

For all the piercing she has had done on her stomach, Pachak has only had two rejections, when the piercings have to be taken out or redone because of skin tightening or infection.

Hamrick-Varga said navel piercings used to be the most popular piercings, aside from ears, but recently the focus has shifted back to the face.

"Now it's the lip, upper or lower all the way around the lip has become the most common one I see," Hamrick-Varga said. "But you can pierce anything. I've seen someone pierce their leg and we had one do in between the ribs."

Hamrick-Varga herself has 50 piercings, but only wears jewelry in 35 of them, including more than 20 in her ears.

Another deep breath and Pachak has 22, then 23. But an idea has arisen. With 25 being so close, the pair decides to add two more and hit the magic number.

"I am so excited for her, it just looks so good," Hamrick-Varga said.

Pachak said the more than $2,000 dangling from her midsection doesn't really bother her. She can still sleep on her stomach and wear the clothes she wants. Her only complaint is that the ties from her scrub pants occasionally get caught.

But her 6-year-old son appreciates his mom's unique style.

"We were at a restaurant, and he saw a woman with a bellybutton ring. He asked her how many she had. She said she had one, and he told her that his mom had one-hundred million," Pachak said.

With five new piercings, Pachak said she was headed out on the town to show off the new additions and wait for Guinness to confirm or deny her as the newest world-record holder.

"It's something to be known for and it's unique," she said. "Nobody else can say they have what I do."

• Contact reporter Jarid Shipley at jshipley@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.