Good things to know for all piercings:

Jewelry quality is incredibly important during the healing of your piercing! Keep the high-quality starter jewelry in place for the recommended healing time. If you desire a change of jewelry, consult with your piercer for the available options to facilitate healing. (see “Clean, new, high quality jewelry” in the FAQs).

Most piercings will have an expected jewelry downsize appointment to ensure that the jewelry fits appropriately to facilitate healing. After your swelling has gone down, the jewelry you are wearing will feel too long. Congratulations! It’s time for a downsize!

Now, it’s important to know that it’s not time for a downsize just because your piercing stopped being sore. It can be quite swollen and still feel totally fine.

You’ll know it’s time for a downsize when you feel like your jewelry is getting caught or snagged much more frequently than average, and you can see 3-4mm of the post without putting any pressure on it/distorting the area. Think of a nickel and dime stacked on top of each other, that’s about how much extra room we are looking for.

We will carefully replace the jewelry you are wearing with a shorter, more well fit piece. This is helpful because it is more difficult to catch and snag, as well as help prevent migration. When a piece of jewelry is too long it has a lot of space to act like a lever, especially if it gets slept on. This can take your piercing from perpendicular to the tissue to angled, and there isn’t much we can do to fix it.

For these piercings, the downsize is very important as it reduces the likelihood of migration of the piercing, and reduces the chances of snagging your jewelry.

Expected downsize appointments are:

Keep your body jewelry in at all times, including during cleaning.

The Do Nots;

DO NOT pick, pull, tear, or “pop” any tissue from around your piercing.

Do not rotate or spin your jewelry in the piercing channel. This will intensely aggravate your piercing, increasing both your healing time, and the likelihood of extra scar tissue build up.

Scar tissue bumps, commonly misidentified as keloids, are incredibly common during healing. They come up quickly, typically in response to damage, and can take months to go away. If one comes up, the best remedy is keeping up with a GENTLE daily aftercare and a follow up with your piercer. DO NOT pick at it, or try to pop it. The less the irritated piercing is touched, the better it will be.

Don’t play with or move your jewelry in the piercing channel any more than necessary for cleaning.

Do not get cosmetics, lotions, and sprays within 3/4 of an inch of your piercing for the entirety of the estimated healing time to prevent these products from causing complications with your healing.

As a note: Piercings experience irritation far more than infection. If you are unsure what you are experiencing, leave your jewelry in and see your piercer for evaluation. If you are concerned more than unsure, always go to a doctor first.

Thoughts on Q-Tips and Piercings (An Informative Soapbox)

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, the spun fibers of cotton swabs are easy to deposit under a delicate prong setting, or snag the jewelry and pull on it. There is also the general bumping and knocking of your delicate piercing site that’s bound to happen. Have you tried to GENTLY clean the back of a cartilage piercing with a Q-tip?!? It’s tough! It’s actually fairly easy to cause a piercing bump to form by being too rough with a Q-tip.

There are a few ways to capitalize on the advantages, and reduce the downsides though.

• The only q-tips we recommend are the pointy, precision style. The tapered shape allows for the most precise removal of crusties, without knocking your piercing around as much.

• Having a friend help you clean your piercing, especially the back! This will minimize contorting your ear, and the amount of damage your piercing site goes through while trying to blindly clean.

• Only ever use a Q-tip after fully softening up your crusties (shower/warm water rinse) and doing a sterile saline flush.

• If a crusty wants to stay after a thorough softening, sterile saline rinse, and a GENTLE wipe with a Q-tip, leave it for the next day. You could do more harm than good by forcing that crusty to come off.

• Only ever use wet or damp Q-tips, as they are less likely to leave behind fibers.

I do believe that it’s better to use warm running 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. It is easy to over do it though, so please interact with your piercing sparingly.

Other cotton products:

• Cotton cosmetic pads are mentioned a few times in the aftercare, generally for making disposable ice packs or drying off a piercing after cleaning. They have the benefit of being compressed fibers shaped into a flat disk. The more dense the cosmetic pad, the better for our purposes.

• 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. Avoid using these.

• Non-woven gauze can have the same issue of leaving behind far too many fibers.

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 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!