Every healing process is different and impacted by the individual body, type of diet, lifestyle, and climate. Consistent aftercare and not touching, twisting, or interfering with the natural healing process should ensure a positive healing experience.  Your body was designed to heal itself. Help it along by following the below guidelines and aftercare instructions, and please contact us with any questions or concerns. If after 48 hours, more severe complications occur (increased redness, swelling or hardness at the site, pus-like drainage, the onset of fever, and/or prolonged pain at the site or respiratory difficulty following tongue piercing), contact your personal physician or dentist (following oral piercing). 

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• DO NOT treat your new piercing without first washing your hands with warm water and soap. Touching your piercing with unclean hands will inevitably introduce bacteria to the open wound.

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  DO NOT touch, twist, or play with your new piercing. Any twisting or turning you do to your jewelry can irritate your piercing and rotate bacteria from your environment into your healing tissue.

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  DO NOT submerge your piercing during the healing process. This includes the ocean, pools, baths, and hot tubs; to avoid exposure to infection-causing bacteria. 

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  DO NOT remove your jewelry yourself. If you need to take out your jewelry for a medical procedure, come by the shop, and one of our piercers will do it for you.

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  BE CAREFUL not to snag your new piercing. Watch out for towels, clothing, fibers, seatbelts, and purses. 

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  PLEASE NOTE: if you like your jewelry, keep it in. Once the jewelry is removed, the hole will immediately start to shrink, and it becomes difficult (if not impossible) to put your jewelry back in.

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Below you’ll find approximate healing times for different piercings. As every healing process is individual, these timelines are to be used as a guide. Your piercing may take longer or not as long to heal.

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EAR LOBE: 3-4 months

NOSTRIL: 6–9 months

SEPTUM: 2–3 months

EAR CARTILAGE: 6–9 months

NIPPLE: 8-12 months

EYEBROW / LIP: 3–4 month

NAVEL: 6–9 months

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Your piercing is a wound that your body will work naturally to heal. Your job is to keep the piercing clean while your body does its job. As your piercing works to heal itself, it will inevitably discharge fluids and cells. To combat this, we recommend washing your new piercing twice daily – once in the AM and once in the PM – using a sterile saline wound wash. Spray directly onto the piercing twice a day. No rinsing is necessary. Make sure you wash your hands with soap and warm water each time you wash or touch your new piercing. 

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Oral piercings have been implicated in number of adverse oral and bodily conditions. Piercings 

• Maintain excellent oral hygiene and rinse mouth twice daily with distilled water.

• Rinse mouth out after any eating, drinking, or smoking anything, except water.

• For the first few weeks, avoid foods that are hot in temperature, spicy, or high in citric acid, such as grapefruit and oranges, as well as highly fermented foods like beer, wine, and certain cheeses.

• To help reduce swelling in the initial weeks, try ice chips, sleeping with your head elevated over your heart, and over the counter anti-inflammatory medicines such as Ibuprofen.

• Once your piercing has healed, clean your jewelry regularly as plaque can build up on it, as it does on your teeth.
  
  
   

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Healing a piercing requires dedication. Remember that irritation does not necessarily mean infection. Please call, email, or stop by the shop with any questions or concerns.