Damnit Deb

 I’ve been in this industry long enough to see a lot of changes. One of the biggest has been aftercare. When I started small baggies of salt were passed over, much like a sketchy drug exchange. We never knew if you were using it because now we know most of the time you were damaging your piercings by using it. Some lucky people did great. Mixing kitchen salt in a shot glass back in the “dark ages” has come a long way.  Today we use and recommend a sterile saline solution. Our studio uses NeilMed but there are several reputable companies out there. The most important part about this solution is that it is “body safe”, meaning it’s close to impossible to cause harm to your body by using it (unlike kitchen salt). But saline is saline right?  Wrong.  Saline comes in many forms from ocean water to contact solution, and not all are created equal.  Contact Solution vs Sterile Saline Contact solution is one of the bigger mistakes people make. It’s marked as sterile sali...

 Good is expensive. But it looks so pretty! I’m a gold girlie myself and I know I’d have way more jewelry if I could afford it. So what if there was a way? What if you could get jewelry to look like gold but not peel like plated and be safe for your body mods? What if you could have jewelry any color of the rainbow or even rainbow colored that wasn’t going to peel or irritate your piercings?  This is why we anodize.  Coated and plated pieces are often poor quality which can ruin your piercings and hurt your skin. Anodizing on the other hand is safe and as long as the studio using proper implant grade titanium or niobium (we do) then you can have jewelry any color you want, often made in studio while you wait! What is anodizing? Anodizing is an electrochemical process that creates an oxidized layer on the outside of the jewelry. The oxidation affects the wavelength of light that touches the jewelry and how thick that layer is determines what color is reflected. The process...

 Tight little “huggy” hoops are in fashion these days and many people love the look of hoops in a piercing. Generally we don’t recommend them for fresh piercings. That’s not to say it’s not impossible or that some piercings aren’t usually pierced with a hoop based on location, but there are several reasons why it’s best to wait before you put a ring on it.  Well fitted hoops leave very little room around your tissue. The reason for this is that we don’t want them to move too much or catch which can irritate the piercing or cause it to rip out. If that tissue is still healing there’s a good chance you’re still having sporadic swelling which can cause it to rip or migrate but can also make it more likely that the pressure of the ring being too tight is going to give you an irritation bump. This is especially visible on nose piercings as gravity causes the hoop to push on the lower lip of the hole and push up on the inside of the channel.  Image courtesy of LynnLoheide Pierc...

 Have you ever had someone push you so hard you fell over? What if you were leaning on something that gave way? Piercings are fragile when they are healing and that makes them susceptible to migration. I legitimately pushed and messed with my Daith piercing so much while it was healing that it moved a couple of millimeters. Now it’s crooked.  Migration Do you know we can tell which ear you sleep on based on your piercings? The pressure of your head on the pillow actively pushes your piercings and can lead to complications. This is worse while they’re healing.   Here’s a picture of my own ear. This is the ear is sleep on most. The blue lines show you where the piercings should sit were they straight. Over time sleeping on this ear has caused these guys to twist slightly so they are no longer aligned. They’re still close, but should they migrate more there’s good chance I’ll be dealing with irritation bumps.  Speaking of migrating, downsizing your piercings approp...