Up-to-date Piercing Aftercare
Every piercing procedure I perform is followed by the appropriate aftercare instruction conversation with my client. And almost without exception I find that within my instructions, I say something the contradicts something else they have been told to do (or not to do) in the past.
Just as medical procedures are refined and perfected over time, so has the aftercare instructions we professional piercers give our clients. Gone are the days of washing your new piercing with antibacterial soap and spinning the jewelry so it doesn’t stick to the skin (PLEASE DO NOT DO EITHER OF THESE THINGS TO YOUR NEW PIERCING!) However the unfortunate reality is that there are still piercers out there that have chosen to burry their heads in the sand and not keep their aftercare knowledge as up-to-date as it should be. And even worse are the store employees tasked with piercing clients with piercing guns (another very bad idea) that are just repeating instructions they have been told that are just plain wrong.
The most current instructions to care for your new piercing takes a less is more approach. This starts with not touching your piercing, or intentionally moving your new body jewelry. Every time the jewelry in a healing piercing is moved, it can potentially damage the cells trying to heal that piercing. And as we all know, the quickest way to cause an infection in your new piercing is to touch that piercing with non-freshly washed hands.
As for the daily cleaning of your new piercing, we recommend a 20 minute soak with a sterile saline solution twice a day. Soaking your new piercing with saline cleanses and hydrates the cells, and simultaneously flushes out the fluid and cellular material that can accumulate in the wound. It also helps remove and reduce crusting around the piercing. (We recommend using Wound Wash Saline Solution as it is PH neutral to the human body and will stay sterile throughout repeated uses.) And that’s pretty much it.
Your body knows how to heal itself. The less we interrupt that process, the better off we are. And healing your new piercing is no exception. A little common sense and a few saline soaks go a long way toward a happy and healthy piercing.
