cleaning your body piercing
Step 1
Know the correct terms for for jewelry, i.e. say straight barbell, not "tongue ring" and curved barbell or barbell, not "navel ring." It will help you find what you need, and feel more confident buying it.
Step 2
Be familiar with the basic types of jewelry: captive ball rings, barbells (straight, curved, or circular), and plugs. There are also labrets, nose screws, nose bones, septums, twists, eyelets, pinchers, spirals, claws, and talons.
Step 3
Decide what will work with your piercing. Most jewelry can be worn in many types of piercings, labrets and nose screws can be worn in ears, for example. Surface piercings, however, should only use surface bars.
Step 4
Make sure your jewelry has the proper wearable area. The diameter of a ring is measured on the inside, the length of a barbell is between the balls.
Step 5
Get your piercer to change it for you, if your piercing is not yet healed.
Step 6
Inspect your jewelry, making sure the finish is smooth.
Step 7
Choose the proper gauge or millimeter size.
Step 8
Buy internal threads if you can afford them, especially if your piercing gets irritated easily. Internally threaded jewelry is of higher quality than externally threaded. Internal threads are hollow ended, the screw parts are on the ends.
Step 9
Use implant grade surgical steel or titanium, teflon, or glass in your piercing if you have sensitive skin.
Step 10
Use jewelry that won't restrict movement. Teflon (PTFE) jewelry is flexible, and is good for piercings that move a lot, or navels during pregnancy.
Tips
- Be wary of buying jewelry from non-specialty stores, or cheap mall stores.
Piercing studios usually charge 2-5 times the amount that you can expect to pay from a body jewelry retailer. - Titanium, niobium, glass, and organics are usually more expensive than steel, because they are higher quality and often better for your piercing.
- Plastic, acrylic, or lucite jewelry is often cheap, and should not be worn for extended periods.
- If your piercing seems smelly, or gets "cheese", try using organics such as stone, horn, wood, or bone, or glass.
- Surface piercings should always have surface bars in them.
Warnings
- For tongue piercings, dental acrylic should be used rather than regular grade acrylic. Regular acrylic can emit toxins if worn in the mouth. Metal is better for your mouth, but worse for your teeth. In large gauges, many people wear silicone or PTFE in their tongues.
- Different types of metals should not be mixed in oral piercings, such as titanium with steel balls.
- Larger gauge jewelry costs more.
- Heavier jewelry will stretch your piercings. Niobium is almost twice as heavy as steel, titanium about half as heavy. Glass and steel weigh about the same.
