After Care for Piercings

• Never touch your piercing unless you’re cleaning it. Always wash your hands with antibacterial soap before you touch it. Your fresh piercing may be itchy, swollen, secreting a light-colored fluid, or bleeding a little for the first few days. That’s all perfectly normal. The piercing may also get crusty. To loosen the crust, use a hot compress ( a damp, clean washcloth, cotton swab, or sterile gauze) and immediately proceed to your aftercare regimen (course of treatment)

• Clean your piercing twice a day, never more than that. Excessive cleaning can actually hinder the healing process. If you feel you absolutely must clean it more than twice in a day, use sea-salt (not table salt) soak or compress. Add a quarter teaspoon of sea salt to a cup of very warm water.

• Your piercer will recommend an antiseptic appropriate for your specific piercing. A sea salt soak (not table salt), a saline solution or an anti-bacterial soap is best to use for aftercare cleaning. After you’ve removed any crusties, clean the area with the antiseptic and gently rotate the piecing so that the antiseptics get inside. Only rotate jewelry during aftercare regimen. Wear loose, light clothing over your pierce. Try not to bend, twist, or otherwise move the pierced area any more than necessary. For nipple piercing, keep them covered in a loose T-shirt when you sleep.

• Keep body fluids away from your fresh piercing, even your own. The one exception is your urine, which is sterile to your body. Use latex barriers to protect genital piercing during sex even if you usually don’t.

• In the case of oral piercing, if you smoke, eat, or put anything in your mouth, rinse with an Alcohol-Free mouth wash.

• You may find that taking vitamin supplements helps speed up the healing process. Vitamin C and zinc, as well as a good multivitamin, seem to work well.

• No matter what the primary healing time is, you must wear your initial jewelry (unless your pierce requires downsizing) four weeks before you can even think about changing it.

• Keep following your aftercare instructions even if the pierce looks healed. (Primary healing may only take a few months, but a piercing doesn’t completely heal for a couple of years.) Piercing's heal from the outside in.

Some approximate healing times for different piercings:

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