Stretching Body Piercings
Is the practise of gradually fitting larger gauge Jewellery into your piercing. Whilst I don’t recommend performing your own piercings at home, you can (with some care) stretch your own piercings. This guide will give you a brief overview of how to go about it.
Patience
You must only stretch your piercing once it has FULLY HEALED! Now this can be anything from 6 to 18 months, depending on the piercing. The longer you leave it the better; rushing a stretch will almost always end in disaster, consequences being Keloid Scarring and or Rejection. So don’t come crying to me if it happens to you!
What you need.
The tools for stretching are not expensive or difficult to acquire (Pierceit Shop sells them - Plug Plug) and make the whole process quite easy. First off you need the correct size insertion pin (these are tapered pins which gradually enlarge the piercing) and some lubricant (KY is fine) and some latex gloves (not essential but help the person doing the ’stretch’ grip and also are better from a hygiene prospective). So to recap you need. . .
Insertion Pin of the correct size*
Lubricant (KY or Similar)
Latex Gloves
Correct Size Jewellery
Someone to Help (optional)
*The Correct Size is generally the next size up from what you have (so if you have a piercing at 2.4mm the next size up would be 3.2mm - I know that 0.8mm doesn’t sound like much, but believe me you will feel every nanometer of that 0.8mm)
Doing It
Ok once you have all the necessary bits together, you can start the stretch.
Here my lovely assistant has removed the 2.4mm Ball Closure Ring (the one with the Ball in) from my Ear Lobe and prepared the new 3.2 Niobium Ball Closure Ring.
Next we apply some lubricant to the stretching pin and we are good to go.
Here you can see our insertion pin, lubed and ready to go.
Doing IT
Here you can see the Insertion Pin about half way through my Lobe; Take it slowly and support the skin, also make sure the Pin remains adequately lubricated - but not too much though.
(I’m sure there’s something in my Ear:)
Here you can see the Insertion pin is now off the tapered area and on the ‘flat’ all that remains now is to place the jewellery in the end of the Insertion Pin and feed it through.
(Ahhh - that’s better!)
The Result
Here you can see the 3.2mm Niobium Tiger BCR in my Lobe.
Big Deal!
OK so going up one size is no big deal; but that’s the best way to go - Give it a couple of weeks and we can stretch this piercing again, 4mm next time and eventually a 30mm flesh tunnel!
It has to be said that the Lobe is a good place to start your foray into the world of stretching, as it is very easy and very forgiving; the Septum however is a different story! (as is the Ampallang)
Careful Now!
The main thing to stress is to take it slow, if you are doing it yourself you know when to stop! If you get someone else to do it make sure they know that it’s not a race and yell at them when it starts being painful.
Remember, stretching should be done one size at a time; allow a couple of weeks between stretches, so that your skin can recover.
If in doubt. . .
If you are unsure about any aspect of stretching, why not get your piercer to do your first stretch for you. This gives you a chance to see how the professionals do it and you will pick up handy hints and tips too.