After Care
Basic piercing care
- Most important thing when properly taking care of your piercings; !!DO NOT TOUCH!! - I know it is difficult but is it very important not to touch your piercings. Hands are very dirty and touching your piercings without washing your hands first WILL introduce bacteria to your open wound. So, if you have to touch make sure to wash your hands before and after handling your piercings (even when healed). ONLY USE A STERILE SALINE SOLUTION - Sterile saline solution is the best product to use to clean your piercings. Wound washes and saline solutions are body safe and will help break down the "crusty" bits away from your piercing without being too harsh. Your product shouldn't have any other ingredients in it other than purified water and sodium chloride at 0.9%. That percentage is the same as what the human body hold naturally. So, what we are using is sterile tears. We need to think about what the eye is doing when it produces tears. The eye is creating that "solution" to flush foreign bodies and bad bacteria out while keeping the good bacteria in to help keep the eye healthy. Thats what we want with our piercings! We want to clean the foreign bodies and back bacteria OUT but, keep the good bacteria in that will help heal the piercing to a nice healthy fistula (flesh tunnel) instead of a built-up scar tissue mess. We Recommend Steri-wash Sterile Saline Piercing Wash Twice Daily cleanings- Again remember to wash your hands before and after cleaning your piercing. Add your cleaning to your daily routine. Once in the morning and once before bed should be when you are cleaning your standard piercings. Cleaning up to even 4 times a day depends on your daily activities if okay as well. Just remember to listen to your body because there is such a thing as over cleaning. You don't want to cause irritation to your piercing by over cleaning. When your piercing is finally healed you still need to be cleaning them at least once a day. DO NOT SLEEP ON YOUR PIERCINGS! - If possible, invest in a piercing pillow. We don't want to sleep on our piercings. We introduce bacteria from our pillowcases, and we put an uneven pressure on that healing piercing. Sleeping on them will lead to unsightly piercing bumps and migration. Migrating is exactly what it sounds like. That once straight nice piercing that went with your anatomy will start to shift. It will be angled and angry due to fighting against the anatomy. DOWNSIZE!!!! - If you got a piercing that is supposed to be downsized it is SUPER IMPORTANT to make sure to come in after the allotted timeframe your piercer gave you! if your piercing bar is too long for an extended amount of time it will cause irritation and migration. If you are unsure if your piercing is ready, please book a trouble shooting appointment and we can go over how your piercing is healing and go from there. Try not to go so sleep with wet hair- Wounds like to retain moister! Your piercing is in fact a wound. We want to make sure we are taking care of it like such. Going to bed with your hair wet can cause irritation and/or infection. If possible dry your hair before bed or braid it back and out of the way of your fresh piercing. NO STAGNANT WATER FOR AT LEAST TWO MONTHS - A way to think about it: If your BUTT is going in that water your piercings shouldn't. So that means no bathtubs, hot tubs, swimming pools, lakes, rivers, or any other body of water used for swimming. When washing your face or body where your piercing is located NO soap is to be used on your piercing rinse super well and make sure to pat dry with a paper towel. We do not want to use fabric towels on our piercings. Fabric towels are packed full of bacteria, is a snagging hazard and has tiny fibers that can get caught into your piercing channel causing irritation and/or infection
Inner Ear Specific
IE: Daith, Tragus, Conch
EVERYTHING STATED ABOVE IN BASIC PIERCING CARE
Avoid using ear buds and or stethoscopes if possible or until you at least have had your downsize appointment. When using ear buds or stethoscopes with an inner ear piercing it is important to clean your buds or scopes with an alcohol wipe first each time before putting them in and after your shift clean your piercing.
Surface, Navel and anchors
EVERYTHING STATED ABOVE IN BASIC PIERCING CARE
If you were bandaged at your appointment, make sure to wear that bandage for the first 24 hours.
It is important to note that these piercings are known as LONG TERM TEMPERARY. This means these can last anywhere from a few months to 15+ years. Depending on many factors but one of the largest is just how your body responds to them.
NO HIGH WAISTED PANTS!!!- the friction from the tight fabric can cause irritation, infection and rejection. Yes, even leggings with high waist bands can cause irritation, infection or rejection from your piercing not be able to breathe and having a tight fabric rubbing against them.
Be mindful of where your piercings are at and what you are doing. No unnecessary friction. No bodily fluids from partners.
If you are having a hard time cleaning underneath your beads, gems, or tops one thing that I and clients have found helpful is using a CLEAN piece of thread. Spray the piercing and using the thread to "floss" underneath the top end piece to get any stuck and dried sebum out of there.
Oral work
Anything that is going into your mouth that is not water you need to be using a non alcohol based mouth rise. PLEASE DO NOT USE LISTERINE, it is way too harsh and has chemicals that can cause issues for your piercing.
Stay away from dairy products for the first few weeks. Dairy had great bacteria for your guts and overall health but that bacteria is NOT good for open wounds.
Stay away from beer as well for the first few weeks because of the yeast in beer it can cause irritation and/or infection
No giving oral sex for the first few weeks as well. Again, your piercing is an open wound, and we want to make sure that we are being safe and smart not to get an infection while healing.
genital work
MOST STATED ABOVE IN BASIC PIERCING CARE
Depending on the piercing you received your piercer will have told you how long you need to wait in-between having relations of the sexual nature again.