Aftercare for Tattoos and Piercings

What To Use:
The only thing you should use for your piercing is a packaged, sterile saline (it may be labeled as “wound wash”). We don’t recommend attempting to mix your own salt water solution, or using any other form of wound care (like A&D, neosporin, etc.). Your would wash should have .09% sodium chloride as the only ingredient.
**DO NOT!!!! Attempt to use things like contact solution, eye drops, or any other form of saline based fluid that isn’t wound wash with sodium chloride.

Cleaning Instructions: If at anytime you have questions or want further clarification on our aftercare, we are always happy to field phone calls or messages on social media to help with your piercings!

–wash your hands prior to cleaning, touching, or doing anything else with your new piercing for any reason. When you are not cleaning your piercing, leave it alone.

–saline rinse as needed during the healing process. If your piercing is in a hard to spray area (inner ear, or belly button, etc) you may use a clean gauze or Q tip saturated with saline. Rinse with regular water afterwards. DO NOT use alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, iodine, or other forms of disinfectant.

–Wash your piercing anytime it may have been exposed to contaminants (work, air ports, etc.). Be sure to use a gentle soap. Avoid harsh soaps with dyes, fragrances, etc.

–Rinse thoroughly to remove all traces of soap and saline from the piercing.

–Don’t twist your piercing. This is an old myth that does nothing but harm your piercing while it’s trying to heal, you can just leave them be aside from cleaning.

–Dry your piercing by gently patting with clean, disposable paper products. Previously used cloth towels can cause infection, and cloth in general does a good job snagging and getting wrapped around jewelry. Paper towels are best.

-Change your pillow case and sheets regularly during the healing process. You will likely have some fluids from your piercing get on your coverings while you’re sleeping, having clean, fresh sheets and pillow cases is a great step to help prevent infection.

General Rules/ Recommendations:

-Bleeding, swelling, tenderness, bruising, white/ off white/ yellow secretions, and plasma are all very common fluids that you can expect to see come out of your piercing, especially during the first week or so.
-Crust. Again it’s very important not to twist your piercings to loosen this. It’s going to help stabilize the jewelry and prevent contaminants from entering the open wound. Spraying with saline or cleaning the piercing may remove this, but it can come back and it’s perfectly normal and healthy to do so. This can make your piercing itchy, but it’s important that you resist the urge to itch your piercing at all times, it is never a good idea to itch a healing piercing.

-Keep your jewelry in, and don’t try to swap out your jewelry earlier than advised by your piercer. A piercing may “seem” healed before it truly is, and fresh piercings can still close VERY quickly (within minutes) when there’s no jewelry present. Wear jewelry at all times during the first few years of getting your piercing, and only change the jewelry you are initially pierced with after the time frame recommended by your piercer.

-If you have reached the time frame your piercer said should be ready to change out, but you still experience any of the effects mentioned above (fluids, tenderness, etc.) then contact your piercer. It’s possible something is slowing/ preventing the healing of your piercing and it’s important to make sure these possible issues are discovered and fixed. We are happy to help run you through some of the most common issues that cause delays in healing to try and get you on track.

-Exercise is fine, but don’t allow the piercing to touch any exercise equipment.

-Don’t take a bath/ submerge your piercing. This means no ocean, no swimming pools, no lakes or rivers, or any other form of public water or water where you would submerge your piercing. Large bodies of water, especially like lakes, rivers, and the ocean, are huge playgrounds for bacteria and other contaminants. There is the common myth that the ocean helps heal your wounds, but this is actually not true. Your piercing also doesn’t wanted to be submerged for long periods of time, so swimming is a good thing to avoid for the first 2 weeks or so of your piercing.

-Don’t overclean your piercing. 2-3 times a day as needed is plenty.

-Don’t get beauty products on or around the piercing, these harbor and collect bacteria very efficiently and pose a great risk for infection.

-Don’t wear any heavy, largely ornamental jewelry until after your piercing is healed. While it may not seem heavy in your hand, a piece of jewelry with ornamentation, or that is heavier in general, will put a great amount of constant pressure/ stress on your piercing while it is trying to heal.