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 can be 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:

The Short Version

  • Wash your hands!

  • Do your aftercare after a shower, warm water rinse, or warm compress.

  • Gently remove softened crusties with a sterile saline wound wash flush.

  • If you need to, gently use a q-tip to finalize cleaning. (only do this 2-3x per week!)

  • Gently dry the area with a q-tip, non-woven gauze, or a clean paper towel.

  • Do this once per day through your entire healing time.

For more information about Q-Tips and Piercings, see Good Things to Know

Maintaining Your Piercing:

The Detailed Version

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!

Around day 7-14, you will begin to develop “crusties”. This is a buildup of drainage that dries around your piercing site, and is absolutely expected during the normal course of healing an external piercing. You will notice that you get more crusties during some portions of healing than others, and they tend to peak around the 1-3 month mark of healing and trend downward after that. You might also notice that after your piercing is damaged, or if you are getting sick, you have an increase in crusties even well into healing. Your aftercare routine should remove these crusties gently. 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 on the front, back, and the jewelry itself. Dab up the surrounding moisture with a clean paper towel, q-tip, or non-woven gauze, 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.