Do tattoos and body piercing interest you? Have you ever seen people walking around with the large plugs in their ears instead of “normal” ear rings and wonder how they do it? It is a process that must be done slowly so that your piercing is not torn instead of stretched like it is supposed to be.
In most tattoo and body piercing shops the standard ear piercing is made at 18, 16, or 14 gauge, but at other locations like malls or department stores who use ear piercing guns, your ear piercing could even be made as small as a 20 gauge. A 20 gauge piercing will more resemble the width of a pine needle, and these or even smaller jewelry is the standard available in most department stores. So to find the larger gauge jewelry for your piercing, it is best to check with your local body piercing studio. Never buy any jewelry that has been worn and re-sterilized. It is also not a good idea to wear a friend’s used piercing jewelry that has been handed down, the chance of infection from the bacteria on old piercing jewelry is great during the healing process after stretching.
The best point to remember is to not stretch or gauge a piercing more than 2 sizes larger than what you are wearing now. If you currently wear a 14 gauge ear ring and want to end up with an 8 gauge piercing then it must be done in two separate instances. You could safely stretch from a 14 gauge to a 10 gauge and then wait a few weeks for it to heal. Then after the stretched piercing is healed you may attempt to stretch it again from a 10 gauge to an 8 gauge in one step. This is the normal sizing, or gauging, chart for almost any body piercing: 20 gauge, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 0, 00, 1/2 inch 3/4 inch 1 inch and up. Custom plugs can be made to fit any size you choose, but check with your local tattoo and body piercing studio to see options such as size and type of material. Jewelry can be bought or special ordered and sometime even made to order, check with your local jewelry supply store.
Most body piercing shops will offer to change out your new jewelry for you, sometimes for an extra charge. But if you prefer to take out your old body jewelry by yourself, try to avoid using needle nose pliers; they leave indentions in the metal of the jewelry that can cause cuts and scrapes when the jewelry is put through another piercing. If you must use pliers, first wrap them in a medium to thick piece of material and secure the cloth around the pliers with a small rubber band.
The easiest method to stretch a piercing for those who are more susceptible to pain is the shower. If a piercing that you have closes up or you are trying to gauge (or stretch) the piercing the hot water from a shower will loosen up your skin a bit. Remove your current jewelry outside of the shower so it does not fall down the drain if you drop it. Soap up your piercing a little and pull down on your ear lobe as you push the new jewelry into the hole.
If you are not used to changing your own body jewelry or stretching a piercing yourself then the best option for you would be a tool called a taper. A taper can either be in the form of an ear ring that increases in size as you push the ring through, or it can be a taper spike that can be made from many different materials. The taper spike is starts out at the size of your current piercing and ends at the size you want to end up at. Taper spikes are inserted through all at once with a little bit of lube on the end to help it slide through; these are not generally left or worn inside of the piercing longer.
Some people hang weights, heavy hoop ear rings, or other different things from their old piercing in order to stretch it out; this method is slower and a lot less painful, but you do have to deal with days or weeks of discomfort and pulling. It is normal to make your piercing a bit sore as it stretches out. However, as soon as you remove the weights the piercing will go back to the size it originally was unless you have already changed out the jewelry to a larger size.
You can’t have something for nothing, but at least when you decide to get a piercing, instead of a tattoo, you have the ability to remove it if you change your mind, but know that when you stretch a piercing past a certain point, it will never heal up completely again. As we often hear, “beauty is pain”, and so it is in the world of tattoos and body piercing.
