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Healing Your New Piercing

We recommend soap and water to clean your piercing!

  • Once per day in the shower is fine.
  • If you have build-up, discharge, or crusties, move it around when you clean it, otherwise, leave it alone!
  • After six weeks, it’s recommended to size-down your piercing for a shorter bar, this will maintain good healing.

Additional Warnings!

    • Always wash your hands before touching your piercing.
    • Some discharge is normal, if it is red, white or yellow, you are fine, just wash it.
    • If the discharge is green, go to the doctor to get some antibiotics before it gets worse, otherwise you may be forced to take out your piercing.
    • Swelling is normal, take Ibprofen. You can do this easily for the first week for any piercing.
    • If the swelling does not go down after three days, switching the jewelry for a longer bar is possible, so please contact your piercer.
    • Please contact your piercer at the first sign of any problems so they can counsel you before the issue worsens.
    • Do not wear make-up on or around your piercing for the first month, this can irritate it!
    • If you’re piercing gets snagged on something, it may bleed, no need to worry, just clean it, and be gentle moving forward.
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Additional Healing Quick Links:

Mouth Piercings

Nose Piercings

Piercing Bumps



Sea Salt Cleaning Method

If you have build-up that’s been difficult to remove with warm water and soap later alone, you can also use a q-tip dipped in saline miture to clean your piercing.

If you have used sea salt in the past, you’re welcome to use it, but many people have a hard time healing with sea salt mixes. This can be even worse if you have sensitive skin.

We have H2Ocean available for purchase at the shop if you prefer not to mix your own saline solution.

To mix your own sea salt water:

      1. Take half a dixie cup of warm water

      2. Dissolve half a teaspoon of non-iondized sea salt in the warm water by stirring it with a q-tip

      3. If you have build-up or crusties, push the piercing forward, or rotate it to expose the bar and clean both sides.

      4. Do this morning and night as needed, whenever you have build-up, for at least 6 weeks.

A healing piercing is the most critical part of getting a new piercing. When you get a new piercing from a professional piercer, your piercer will be using sterile equipment and will take the precautions needed to ensure your piercing is done correctly and safely. However, when you leave with your fresh piercing it’s up to you to ensure that the piercing is cleaned and taken care of properly to reduce the risk of infection and further irritation.

A clean piercing ensures that the new piercing will heal quickly and without complication. Here we will explain the proper ways to clean your new piercing and provide you with information that will be useful for you during the process. Always wash your hands thoroughly before touching your piercing, even when cleaning it. You’ll always want to keep the piercing free of blood, or any other bodily discharge.

Soap and water works best for most people. Piercing sprays, or saline mixtures, like H2Ocean are ok, as long as you haven’t had trouble with them in the past. Cleaning the piercing itself will require you to move the piercing slightly to expose more of the bar. You’ll want to wipe and clean the actual piercing on both sides. Make sure to get behind the front ball or gem, and also the space between the backing and your skin.

If you have build-up, or crusties, it is easiest to clean the piercing with a clean Q-tip, dipped in a saline mixture or with a spray. Only do this when you have build-up.

Piercings with rings should be rotated instead of pushed forward and backwards, like septum piercings and anything with a clicker ring. The point is to expose as much metal as possible on both sides to ensure the piercing is clean.

If there’s any trouble with your piercing, please feel free to call the shop with any questions you may have. Feel free to send any pictures of it as well so we can further assist you.

Mouth Piercings

Outer Mouth Piercings: ( lips, cheeks, labrets) Use soap and water, or the Sea Salt and Q-tip method on any outer part of the piercing. Piercings on Inside of the Mouth: For two weeks: Alternate gargling sea salt water mix and Listerine at least three times a day each, throughout the day. Use Listerine after you eat. Piercing Changes: After the swelling has gone down, usually after two to three weeks, you can switch your lip or tongue piercing for a shorter bar. Please allow at least three weeks of healing before switching to rings for snakebite piercings. Additional Mouth Warnings!
      • DO NOT SMOKE for the first three weeks with a mouth piercing. If you happen to slip up, use Listerine after!
      • For Tongues, it helps to carry around a big gulp sized cup of ice. Set the ice on your tongue throughout the day and let it melt. Do not suck on or chew the ice
      • Avoid straws and any sucking motions
      • Avoid Spicy and hot foods

Nose Piercings

While you can start with a ring, there is a higher chance of forming a piercing bump, so we recommend waiting six weeks before switching to a ring. Septum Piercings: Please wait 3 months before stretching your septum for the first time, and then every two months thereafter, you can go up 2 gauges at a time. Piercing Changes: Please wait at least 6 weeks before switching out your nose or septum piercing. Additional Nose Piercing Warnings!
      • If your piercing falls out, in most cases, you have about 4 hours to get it back in, after that the cartilage may have shifted, and you’ll need to be re-pierced.
      • You can not take out your nose piercing and expect to be able to still get the jewelry in a few days later, so keep something in there!
      • If you have a nose screw, and the bar gets caught in the center of your nose, grasp it by the crystal, and twist the piercing so that the bar points straight back, it will provide instant relief.
      • If you have a cold, make sure that at some point, you pull the inner bar to the front and clean off any build off. You don’t want to leave the bar dirty, it causes pressure on the piercing, and increases your chance at getting a bump.

Common Piercing Problems

Please!  If you are having an issue with your piercing, please come in and allow a piercer to help you.  In most cases, we can’t help you diagnose the problem without seeing you in person!

How to get rid of a Keloid or Piercing Bump

When your new piercing develops any sort of abnormality during the healing process, it can be pretty unsettling. Especially when you’re unsure of what exactly is happening. Here, we’ll focus more on what you can do to deal with different issues that could occur, or even get rid of some types of abnormalities. It’s important to note that if you’re ever unsure what it is that has formed on or around your new piercing, contact your piercer and send them a picture. If your piercing is secreting green fluid, take the piercing out and contact a healthcare provider.

      • Piercing Bump
Piercing bumps are actually more common than people may think. These are the easiest to deal with. A piercing bump occurs when the jewelry is not perpendicular to the skin that it’s resting in. This is because one side of the jewelry is pushing down on one side of the healing wound and exposing more of the other side. This creates a red “bump” on the obtuse portion of the angled piercing. The best way to think of this is as an “irritation bump”. If you notice a piercing bump, just make sure that you don’t poke it, slice it, or do anything to aggravate it. Doing so may lead to further complication, scarring, and infection. What you can do is make sure that you’re cleaning your piercing properly with a saline solution three times a day (morning, noon, and night) for the entire duration of the healing process (typically 6 weeks). If left alone, a piercing bump will eventually go away and your piercing will heal normally with no fuss or further abnormality.
      • Localized Piercing Pimple
A localized piercing pimple is exactly what it sounds like: a pimple. It may be very disconcerting to notice that your new piercing has a pimple directly on, or near the hole where the jewelry is placed. However, just like the “piercing bump” this is a more common occurrence than people may think. This pimple is formed because there is a small, localized infection at or around the new piercing. When you notice that your new piercing has developed a piercing pimple there are two things that you must do. Firstly, it is okay to drain the pimple. When draining it, make sure that you’re careful not to let the leakage seep into the piercing. Additionally, you’ll want to clean the piercing three times a day with your saline solution as normal. Avoid using pimple creams and other typical remedies for regular pimples. Using creams, ointments, or any other methods could aggravate and cause additional complications with your healing piercing. Please make sure you are not wearing make-up anywhere close to a new piercing for at least one month after getting a piercing.
      • Rejection
It is important to note, that rejection can happen to any piercing, at any point in the piercing’s lifetime. When your jewelry begins to migrate (move from its original placement) this an early sign that your body is starting to “reject” the piercing. This could be for a few reasons. For example, if you’re allergic to certain metals, have a pre-existing medical condition, or develop an infection you could run the possibility of potential rejection. Essentially, rejection is when your body tries to expel (or reject) an object that is unnatural in your skin. When you notice the piercing hole start to grow wider, with the jewelry appearing looser, it is the first sign that your piercing is in fact starting to reject. At this point, you need to take the piercing out. Leaving it in would only cause more harm and lead to worse scarring. At the point when you take your piercing out, it’s advised that you let that wound heal completely before considering getting any other piercing. Unfortunately, if a piercing has rejected once, chances are if you get one in the same place the same thing will happen again, unless the original piercing was done shallow to begin with.
      • Keloid
Keloids are less common than people actually think. Oftentimes, people will refer to a piercing bump as a keloid. The major difference is that a piercing bump is a bodily reaction to wound irritation and skin trauma. A keloid is scar tissue that mounds and grows around a piercing when it’s healing. Piercing bumps are temporary and go away within weeks after they’re formed, whereas a keloid is scar tissue that won’t easily go away. If you start to develop a keloid around your new piercing, and you have already tried the tea tree oil method, then you should take the piercing out. The larger a keloid is, the more difficult it is to get rid of. You can rub tea tree oil into it 2-3 times a day. This helps speed up the healing process immensely, but it takes weeks at best. Some people choose to have keloids medically removed, but I know from experience, most keloids will go away on their own. I had a couple that took three years to go away, but then I did not use tea tree oil on them from when they first appeared. The key is to baby your piercing at the first sign of trouble.