Q: I recently used sterile piercing kits to pierce my nipples. Approximately how long should I leave the piercing posts in? -Rick C
A: Since you’ve already gone ahead and done your own piercing, we won’t use this as an opportunity to tell you why doing your own piercings at home is not a good idea. (Not sterile, weird piercing angles make for weirdly angled piercings, not being a trained piercer, potential for things to go horribly wrong, etc. Okay, maybe we’ll tell you why after all lol.) One of the notable downsides of doing a home piercing is that you don’t have the piercer to tell you about proper aftercare or, as you’ve discovered, how long your piercing takes to heal. For nipple piercings, that would be roughly 9 to 12 months. However, you may need your jewelry downsized before the piercings are fully healed so a strong recommendation would be that you visit a trained piercer in about 3 to 4 months and have them check your piercings, make sure they are healing properly, and see if your jewelry needs to be downsized in order to fully heal properly. Happy piercing…. .just be safe!
Q: I have a cartilage piercing I had done at a mall piercing shop. I’m trying to find out what size of hoop I need to put in it besides the regular piercing? It was done with a piercing gun. -Valerie
A: This is a complicated question. First of all, without knowing what specific piercing you have, it’s difficult to know what you need. Since you’re looking for circular jewelry, it’s safe to assume that it’s not an industrial piercing and therefore is most likely to be 16 gauge. A safe guess for diameter would be either 8mm or 10mm jewelry, unless you’re talking about a conch piercing which could be 12mm or bigger. However, since you got the piercing done with a gun, there’s actually no way to guess what diameter you need or even what gauge. This is one of the reasons that gun piercings and places like the ones at the mall are so frowned upon. (There are a lot of reasons why gun piercings are a bad idea and if you’d like to read further, check out this blog post. You are left with two options here. You can get a pair of digital calipers and measure your jewelry to see what size piercing you’re working with, or you can go to a piercing studio and have a trained professional fit you with the correct jewelry. Going to a proper piercer is an excellent idea, especially if you plan on getting more piercings in the future. It will allow you to establish a relationship with both the shop and the piercer for the future and make you feel more comfortable on future visits. And please, no more gun piercings… ok? Best of luck!
Disclaimer: Body Candy is only here to give you fun and helpful advice and information when it comes to getting pierced. Always consult a professional piercer to make sure a new piercing is right for you!
