First and foremost, don’t touch it!
External Piercing Aftercare
What to use:
NeilMed NeilClense Wound Wash -or-
A prepackaged Sterile Saline Wound Wash product containing only USP Grade Water & USP Sodium Chloride @ 9 mg/ml (0.9%), with NO additives.
There are a lot of saline wound wash products on the market! Please ensure that your saline contains only the above ingredients. Wound Wash products that contain additional ingredients are too harsh for the delicate healing of a piercing, and can cause irritation. Homemade saline is difficult to mix appropriately, and impossible to keep sanitary as it is stored. If you are unable to find appropriate saline, we would prefer you use warm water.
Maintaining your piercing:
Wash your hands prior to cleaning or touching your piercing for any reason. Only clean once per day, as over cleaning can cause irritation and mechanical damage to your piercing.
Always add heat and moisture to your piercing before trying to clean it. That means doing a warm water rinse, using a clean, warm, wet compress, or cleaning your piercing after a warm shower. A warm water rinse or shower is preferred, as nothing but water touches your piercing. Turn on the tap to warm, and allow that water to run over your piercing for 2-4 minutes. This will do a lot of work to loosen up and remove crusties and increases blood flow to the area, which helps healing. To use a warm compress, wet down a clean white paper towel or cotton cosmetic pad and gently hold it over and around the piercing site until it has cooled, 2-4 minutes. Be careful when you do this to not distort your piercing or apply pressure!
Your piercing will develop “crusties” as it heals, which is a buildup of drainage that dries into an accumulation around the piercing site. This is totally expected. Crusties can start as early as 1 week into healing, and can continue on and off for months. Varying shades and colors of drainage are acceptable and expected in moderate amounts. Should drainage seem excessive or unusual in any way, it could be worth a trip to see a professional piercer.
On days when your piercing has few or no crusties, after using heat and moisture, use saline to gently flush your piercing site. Dab up the surrounding moisture with a clean paper towel, q-tip, or cotton cosmetic pad, and you’re good to go!
On days that you do have a crusty build up that remains after heat and moisture and a gentle saline flush, saturate 2-4 pointy/cosmetic Q-tips with sterile saline solution. Using extremely gentle circular motions with a light touch, wipe away built up drainage from the front and back of the jewelry and the piercing channel. Cleaning between your skin and your piercing jewelry is the goal, but too much disruption or knocking of the piercing can cause damage (even if it doesn’t hurt!). So please be nice to your new healing piercing. It is trying it’s best.
Cleaning off drainage allows the piercing to breathe and heal, and prevents the sandpaper effect that crusties can have. Expect to clean crusties from your piercing off and on for approximately 3/4 of your total healing time, reducing in frequency as you progress through healing.
DO NOT twist or turn your jewelry through the healing time. The idea that you have to twist your jewelry to prevent it from being “stuck” is an outdated understanding. If your jewelry feels stuck it generally means that it needs a thorough cleaning. Take a warm shower and/or gently flush the piercing under the warm water. When you get out if it’s still feeling stuck use saline to flush the area and as a last resort, very gently use the saline soaked q-tips to clean any debris or material from around the piercing. After a gentle but intentional cleaning, your piercing should no longer feel stuck.
DO NOT clean with incorrectly mixed saline solution, or first aid products like alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, witch hazel, soap (including gold dial-an outdated method), tea tree oil, bactine, or antibiotic ointment. This can damage healing tissues, increase healing time, leave residual buildup, prevent air circulation, and/or increase overall complications. If sterile saline is unavailable, use warm water flushes or warm water on Q-tips.
About Q-Tips and Piercings
There is a profound love-hate relationship between body piercings (and piercers!) and cotton swabs. A crusty difficult to reach piercing and a Q-tip seem to be a match made in heaven. However, cotton swabs are spun with fibers that love to wreak havoc with body jewelry. It is unfortunately far too easy to catch a small fiber under a delicate prong setting and either deposit the fiber or snag the jewelry and pull on it. Not to mention the general bumping and knocking that can occur when one may be working sightlessly at an unusual angle. The advantage of having a tool battles with the damage the tool can cause.
I propose that perhaps a very mindful usage with a gentle hand or the help of a gentle friend could really help prevent damage and reduce the number of fibers left behind. I would also suggest seeking out pointed cosmetic swabs as a more accurate and precise tool. The tapered shape allows for a more careful removal of drainage material with less of a chance of general mechanical damage.
I do believe that it’s better to use moving water or saline rinses to flush out one’s piercing and to avoid usage of cotton swabs as much as possible. However, there are times when healing a piercing that a bit of debris stuck between the jewelry and the skin can cause substantial discomfort and at times even disrupt the healing process. Gently cleaning that out with a very light touch and a precise tool can make a world of difference. Being comfortable with a healing piercing is important. But it is easy to over do it. So please, interact with your piercing sparingly.
Cotton cosmetic pads are mentioned a few times in the aftercare in reference to the need for a broader, disposable and more absorbent tool than a swab. Cotton balls are a menace. They are far too loosely spun and shed fibers wildly. Wash rags harbor far too much bacteria and have many loose fibers that could get easily snagged. Non-woven gauze has the same issue of leaving behind far too many fibers. A cotton cosmetic pad has the benefit of being compressed fibers shaped into a flat disk. The more dense the cosmetic pad, the better for our purposes. Anything cotton has the possibility of depositing fibers but I have found that using moist or wet cotton products tends to leave fewer behind than a dry product.
If you find yourself with a piercing site that you struggle to clean or you feel as if you have something trapped in or around your piercing, please consult with your piercer. A second set of eyes and a pair of hands familiar with helping in such circumstances can be a world of relief. Plus, it allows your piercer to check your healing progress and make any adjustments that could help with the healing process.