Heather's Aftercare Recommendations 2025

**Aftercare suggestions, healing time estimates, and wording used here are only my opinions. I’ve formed my opinions about piercing aftercare over my career through experience and education, like attending APP conference classes, reading medical research papers on superficial wound care, and reading other piercers’ posts on online forums. Piercers suggest different things based on their own experiences and education, but also we differ in so many other contexts. Studios operate on different volumes of clients, different demographics of clients, at different ranges of price points, with different styles of piercing experiences.

This is what I currently recommend and have found the most success with for my clients, in my studio. 

For context, I have been piercing almost exclusively at Good Life since 2012. Good Life is currently a moderate volume APP member studio. When I started it was two people, my mentor Jeremiah and I, now we have grown to a team of fourteen. We have a team based studio with studio assistants and jewelry stylists along with the piercers. Jewelry pieces range from implant grade titanium and stainless steel with synthetic stones, to 14k gold with synthetic stones, and 14k gold with genuine stones. Stylists and assistants are educated and capable of handling intermediate questions about aftercare, where piercers are responsible for giving thorough aftercare direction to each client situationally, both verbally and in writing. The studio offers a thoroughly curated piercing experience, with a dedicated guided jewelry shopping experience with a stylist prior to piercing services with a piercer. Our average appointment being a half hour per single piercing per client. We are staffed with 2-4 piercers each day. We are located in the Midwest, in a city with a population of ~180,000 beautiful people, and a regional population of ~3.7 million people. **

-HW

My Aftercare Philosophy

I always discuss aftercare and healing expectations with clients prior to a piercing service. I am a huge advocate for informed consent. I want to make sure each client knows what to expect from a normal healing experience, what they should or should not do, and when to reach out for help. I want them to know the risks and the weight of making potentially permanent changes to their body.  I also entirely respect when someone hears about the healing and aftercare processes, and decides that it isn’t for them. That’s why it’s important to do it *before* any piercing service is performed.

I particularly like to onboard first time clients and explain aftercare in a full few minute lecture to help them become familiar with my philosophy and understand what is happening when they heal a piercing. When I discuss piercing aftercare with clients during piercing services I tailor my explanation to the client based on what they are specifically getting and their lifestyle after getting to know them a little.

This is essentially my aftercare speech that I would give to a first time piercing client, in long form. 

Healing a piercing is kind of a miracle. A cool human trick. A weird science experiment. There are so many different tangents I could go on. We could talk about all five latin anatomical names for the layers of skin. We could talk about collagen generation. We could talk about the chain reaction of the human body’s inflammatory response. I could go on forever. 

If we really boil down and simplify what is happening though… you’re growing a tunnel of skin (fistula) around a foreign object (body jewelry). It may sound gross, but that’s really in its simplest explanation what is happening. When someone takes out a piece of jewelry out of an earlobe piercing and you see the little dark impression in the skin, that’s the tunnel you see! 

This tunnel is going to heal like every other cut or scrape you’ve ever had. It will go through the same phases of healing like: blood to scab, scab to pink fragile skin, pink fragile skin to resilient skin - and this would be when we consider the piercing healed! When the tunnel has not only formed, but also has become resilient. The piercing is going to take longer than a cut to heal since it’s working around a foreign object - the jewelry. This is why high quality implant grade jewelry is important. To make sure your body doesn’t have to heal a wound around a foreign object and fight materials it isn’t compatible with.

So like a cut - a piercing has some symptoms when it’s healing. It’s completely normal to see some redness, swelling, and even discharge or crustiness on a healing piercing. I call these primary symptoms. This is like the first bit of healing a cut, it might look a little rough - but these symptoms should be relatively minimal. They may not appear immediately in all piercings. I notice these primary symptoms fade in, peak, then fade out over the course of the first month or so of a normal healing situation. The symptoms should generally only ever improve over time after peaking, and not recur after they normalize. 

The time frame of the normalization of symptoms happens between 4-12 weeks. It can vary depending on the person, the piercing, their immune system, the moons? All that matters is that you see consistent  improvement and eventual clearing of the primary symptoms.

Your primary job when you heal a piercing is to protect it. You cannot do anything to make a piercing heal - you can only give your body the time and space it needs to build the tunnel for you. We’re aiming at avoiding damage to the growing tunnel.

The 3 Rules to protect your piercing:

• No touching

• No germs

• No chemicals

RULE 1

NO TOUCHING

The no touching rule is the most important.

If you touch, pick at, spin, twist, pick stuff off of, or change a healing piercing it causes the same damage as picking a scab off of a healing cut. It literally tears apart the little bricks your body brought to build the tunnel, and sets you back to square one. Your piercing is already going to take long enough to heal, don’t hit reset and make it take Even. Longer. 

Directly touching it isn’t the only way you can damage it either. Other things touching, snagging, hitting it will cause the same damage too. Protect your piercings and be slow about doing things like changing clothes, doing hair, and showering until you get used to living around your new piercing. 

Be cautious with things like headphones, eyeglasses/sunglasses, headbands/hats, and headsets while taking them on and off. 

Finally, sleeping on healing piercings can slow down the process and cause damage to the developing fistula. When sleeping on a piercing, you can force the jewelry to sit at a harsh angle and damage or reroute the healing tunnel. Sleeping on a new piercing can also disrupt the healthy scabbing and create nightly setbacks in healing. Over time, sleeping on healing piercings can result in the dreaded piercing bump or even an unviable piercing.

You know how if you pick a scab on a cut a bunch of times it gets that *distinct* swollen edge on it where you can tell it’s going to scar? I think that’s what piercing bumps are - and the only way you can avoid that (in a properly placed piercing with appropriately fitting jewelry) is avoiding repeated damage to the foundational phases of healing.

RULE 2

NO GERMS

This is half so you don’t touch the piercing, half so you don’t let your piercing touch dirty things.

Aside from the physical damage touching can do, you can introduce bacteria that can lead to infection. Don’t touch your piercings. Don’t let others touch your piercings. Be careful around little kids and pets, both of whom can be dirty, unpredictable, and rough.

Keep the piercing away from dirty surfaces. Be mindful as to not say, rest your industrial piercing on the table at Chipotle when you’re being dramatic that your online order isn’t ready for pick up yet. 

Body piercings that are covered by clothing should only be in contact with clothing layers that are fresh out of the dryer clean. If you wear a sweater several times between washes, wear a clean layer under. Particularly for nipple piercings, when wearing structured bra tops that aren’t cleaned frequently, put unscented panty liners inside the cups as a disposable clean barrier between you and the clothing. This can also be helpful to catch discharge in the early phases of healing nipple piercings.

While you shouldn’t be sleeping on healing ear piercings, it can be helpful to keep fresh pillow cases (or layer clean t-shirts) over pillows to help avoid any accidental exposure of the piercings when you can least control it - during sleep. I also recommend wearing clean tops long enough to cover any body piercings to avoid exposure to sheets or snagging while sleeping.

Healing piercings should also stay out of anything you can soak in. If you have an ear or nose piercing, keep your head above water. If you have a healing body piercing, you shouldn’t soak in anything. It doesn’t matter lake, river, ocean, hot tub, bathtub - there is risk to exposure to bacteria that could lead to infection, and also irritating chemicals. 

Be mindful. Stay clean.

RULE 3

NO CHEMICALS

This is broad and vague on purpose.

You don’t need to use anything on a healing piercing. Again, you can’t do anything to make a piercing heal faster. You can only give it the time and space needed to get through the healing and build the tunnel.

If a chemical is harsh enough to kill germs, it can damage the fragile skin you’re trying to grow around the jewelry and stunt the formation of the tunnel of skin. It can cause excessive dryness and even irritation to the skin around the piercing, making primary symptoms linger longer and potentially present more dramatically. So while you may not get an “infection”, the tunnel doesn’t form and you’re lingering in healing purgatory longer than necessary. 

Never use rubbing alcohol, peroxide, bactine, dial soap, antibacterial or antimicrobial anything. No products, soaps, ointments, creams, or treatments are needed.

On the other end of the spectrum of chemicals - you can use your grooming products, soaps, etc. like normal *except* no deliberate application to your healing piercing. Wash your hair, face, and body completely normal. Be careful to not scrub or apply soap or any other product within a few millimeters of a healing piercing. Be careful to avoid any physical trauma during any showering and grooming and be slow cleansing areas near your healing piercings as well. 

That’s how to protect it. Now you need to know how to clean it. 

CLEANING

Conveniently, where we just left off when talking about protecting a healing piercing, we discussed showering/grooming. This is when you’ll take care to clean your piercing.

Shower completely normally, once per day. Be careful to avoid direct application of any soap or other product to the piercing you’re healing. Be careful to avoid hitting/snagging the healing piercing while scrubbing hair, using loofahs/washcloths, etc.. Rinse yourself off, and prior to getting out, is when you really clean your piercing. To clean your piercing at the beginning of this paragraph and the next paragraph, something is off there. I think it’s the “to clean your piercing at the beginning of this paragraph that needs to go or change.

To clean your piercing stand and let hot water rinse over your healing piercing for approximately 2-4 minutes. Be sure to turn and let water hit the front and back of piercings, from different angles, to make sure the piercing is getting adequate coverage. The goal with rinsing like this is to 1. Rinse away any incidental exposure to soaps used during showering, and 2. To passively clear any scabbing, discharge, dead skin, and oil (sebum) away from the piercing. It is like rinsing a plate with hot water before loading it into the dishwasher. If you rinse the plate long enough, all the food and debris melt away or soften and fall off. If you rinse the piercing long enough the physical debris will clear away from the surface, but without damaging the tunnel.

For nostrils and septums I recommend only rinsing as the primary cleaner still. Rinse the outside of your nose and slowly breathe through your nose while doing the rinse. The steam should help loosen some debris from around the piercing, but also anything in your sinuses. After a few minutes, blow your nose into your hands to clear the discharge from the piercing and snot from your sinuses.

If you don’t wash your hair daily, use a shower cap on the days you’re not washing your hair. I fully support washing your hair once a week and using dry shampoo to keep it together the rest of the week. Wear that wig for several weeks, please. Live your life. You still need to clean your healing ear piercing daily, not just the days your hair is getting wet. If you don’t have a shower cap, get one. Be careful and slow about putting it on, and flush that ear off every day. 

If you shower twice a day because of work, school, or gym routines, rinse your piercing at the end of each shower.

If you don’t typically shower daily, you may need to adjust your grooming routines to accommodate your healing piercing. If showering daily is not an accessible routine for you, talk to your piercer and ask for a customized suggestion about how to handle cleaning adapted to your lifestyle.

CONSISTENT CARE, HEAL TIMES, AND DOWNSIZING

It is really important to stay consistent in your protection and cleaning of a healing piercing. After the primary symptoms fade, approximately 1-2 months into your healing process, there will still be another 2-8 months of healing the piercing has to work through. The tunnel is on its way to forming and is still very fragile. Back sliding on the protection, or starting to deliberately play with, or change a healing piercing can tear the tunnel open, and bring you back to square one - seeing redness, swelling, and discharge again. Falling out of routine with daily hot water rinses can lead to return of symptoms, excessive build up, and makes your jewelry less shiny and attractive.

Stay patient and don’t let up.

After the primary symptoms have normalized, it’s time to downsize. Downsizing jewelry is when you replace the original post, barbell, or curved barbell with one of the same thickness but shorter length. This removes the potential for movement and snagging, and helps keep the momentum of your piercing healing in the right direction. At Good Life, when your jewelry is downsized, you can keep the same decorative end(s) that were originally installed when the piercing was done or opt to have the end(s) changed at that time.

I try to be very mindful about my downsize practice to help ensure a successful outcome for my clients. Downsizing too late can cause a return of primary symptoms or piercing bumps from excessive movement and pressure. Downsizing too soon after the normalization of primary symptoms can cause damage to the tunnel and make the primary symptoms return. Though I am gentle in my approach of physically changing jewelry for clients, there is still potential for damage with any movement. I suggest waiting two weeks past the normalization of primary symptoms - no redness, no swelling, no discharge - for two weeks, then the tunnel should be resilient enough for the service. This most commonly occurs around the 2-3 month mark with my clients, for most piercings. Oral piercings in a much shorter time range of 2-3 weeks. Sometimes clients take longer, on highly rare occasions, sooner. On even rarer occasions, a client will not actually need to downsize at all. Each person’s body is different and it’s about giving your piercing what it needs for the time and place it is at. The best way to know if your piercing is ready to be downsized or wearing appropriately fitted jewelry is to communicate with your piercer and get in the studio for assessment.

Stay in touch and ask questions. Ideally we see the symptoms come and go during the foundational heal time during the first months, and not return. If your piercing has been doing well, and you see a recurrence of any primary symptoms after the piercing has been looking good and normal you should 1. Very consciously reset yourself to taking care of the piercing like it is brand new again. Protect it. Don’t touch or sleep on it. Keep it clean with long hot water rinses. 2. Contact your piercer, let them know what you’re dealing with and we can help guide you through the right moves for recovery.

OKAY I’M HEALED, NOW WHAT?

So what about after your piercing is healed, happy, and resilient? You should still rinse it daily. You’ve grown a tunnel of skin where there didn’t used to be a tunnel of skin. It is going to shed dead skin and oils like the rest of your skin does. Doing a focused rinse at the end of each of your showers is a low effort way to keep your piercings clear of any debris that just comes with being alive and having skin. It also helps keep that dead skin and oil from gathering and oxidizing causing notorious piercing stink, ear cheese, whatever you want to call it. Even further, it will help wash away all of that normal debris off of the jewelry, out of stone settings, and keep your body jewelry looking generally shinier/sparklier.

Your piercing is part of your body, which can get sick and better. Your piercing too can get “sick” and better. If you’re ever experiencing primary symptoms on a healed piercing, damage may have occurred to the tunnel of skin. You can have obvious events of trauma like accidental snags or tears. Sometimes just sleeping on a piercing, wearing helmets, or other activities/behaviors that affect piercings you’ve had for years can cause enough pressure on the tunnel of skin that it gets a small tear or damage of some kind. 

If you see primary symptoms in an established and healed piercing, treat it like it's new. If protecting and cleaning the piercing like it’s new doesn’t recover the situation within two weeks, get into a piercing studio and have it assessed. Talk to a piercer and see if there is a change in behavior, aftercare routine, jewelry fit/style, etc. that can help to alleviate the symptoms and let the piercing recover.

Healed and stable piercings can wear well fitted appropriate jewelry daily without removal for great lengths of time, so long as adequate grooming and cleaning are taking place.

I like to do final checkups for piercing clients to fully assess that a piercing is in fact fully healed and stable. During final checkup appointments (or consultations on substantially healed piercings)  I can take time and gently guide clients through shifting to living with their healed piercings. We can discuss long term maintenance. Discuss which piercings are easily self changeable, and which are not. I love to show clients how to gain a bit of autonomy with their piercings by guiding them through jewelry demos. During these visits I show clients one-on-one how to use appropriate tools the same way I do to safely change their own jewelry at home. 

MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON SALINE SPRAY

Sterile saline wound wash is like an extra credit project. When used properly it certainly isn’t going to hurt you or your healing piercing. It also is not likely to passively clean dried discharge from a healing piercing without causing damage like a few minutes of hot water would. So you still have to do homework and rinse daily to clear any physical debris away.

Some piercers recommend using saline with q-tips, gauze, or by other vehicle to physically remove discharge and debris from piercings. I see a high risk of damage with this method. The fibers on cotton swabs and gauze can snag on jewelry, causing movement and damage. I prefer to encourage my clients through a fully hands free and passive cleaning method to reinforce the importance of protecting the tunnel from damage. 

If using saline spray it should be sprayed straight onto the front and back of the healing piercing. A long full second burst on each side without touching the tip of the saline spray can to the healing piercing. It is kind of like a canned air duster for a keyboard, to lightly clear a light amount of dust/dirt/debris away from a healing piercing. You can catch any saline dripping from the area after spraying, but should not touch the piercing and allow it to air dry.

Sterile saline wound wash should always be pre-mixed commercially manufactured sterile saline with a concentration of 0.9%. Alternative salines like neti pot powder solutions, contact solutions, or DIY homemade saline may have improper saline concentration, other chemicals like moisturizers, and pose risk of bacterial contamination, hence should not be used.

I do occasionally recommend sterile saline spray to clients who would experience environmental exposure to especially dirty and dusty environments for work, hobbies, etc.. For example: dog groomers, equestrians, construction workers… If you should be wearing a particulate mask or respirator for your job, your piercing should likely be covered with clean PPE that does not cause movement or pressure to a healing piercing. People in these situations should also consider additional rinses after these activities or timing their primary daily grooming to be after dirty work or activities. 

The spray is only a lightweight maintenance tool used in addition to, not to replace hot water irrigation.

SUMMARY

People have been getting and healing piercings around the world for thousands of years. It is an immense practice in patience, consistency, and honoring your body. You can get through it and be on the other side of healed. Be patient and give your body space and time to heal and form that tunnel.  When it gets rough again from a freak accident years later, you'll be able to get through it again. Pay attention to what state your body piercings are in - give it time and attention when needed. Most importantly, ask for help when you need it. 

Good Life offers free consultations, troubleshooting, suggestions, and answers to questions for our clients. Always. We can coach you through on getting piercings healed or rehealed. Piercers can assess existing piercings for appropriate placement and angles. We can help in adjusting jewelry fit and style to accommodate whatever phase your piercing is in.

If you’re struggling with a piercing you’re healing and cannot come into our studio for help, reach out to your piercer. Find other safe piercers at safepiercing.org. Ask us to find a safe piercer near you. Use the Ask a Professional Piercer facebook group. There is a robust community within the body piercing industry that is generally willing and happy to help.