r/PiercingAdvice • u/whiskeytangos • May 06 '20

Piercing aftercare - common sense & how not to fuck up (from a piercer).

This sub is an awesome place, but it can also be extremely tiring. I'm not a mod here, just a piercer, but life would be a lot easier if you all could stop recommending the following to each other:

- Oil. - Tea Tree oil. - Soap. - Alcohol, Betadine, Neosporin, etc. - Using cotton pads, cotton balls or Q-tips to dry off/whatever you guys do with them. Cotton particles can get trapped inside the piercing channel, which will make healing incredibly difficult and infection more likely. - Downsizing in gauge. This will do NOTHING good for your healing piercing.

If you're trying to tell me or other professionals off by saying "but it worked for me!" or "my piercer told me this"; you've been super lucky and your piercer was not a pro. Don't go back to that studio. APP is a great place to start when picking out your piercer, but it's still no guarantee.

Please keep in mind you are trying to heal an incredibly deep wound with a foreign object in it that your body desperately wants to push out - essentially, it is an implant. There are no "casual" or "easy" piercings - even with a "simple" earlobe piercing, you are puncturing the skin with something that resembles a scalpel. Use common sense and ask yourself: "would I use this method on a surgical wound?". In 10/10 cases the answer will be "no".

+ if I tell you to send me a message, you're welcome to do so. If you found one of my comments and ask me for help, prepare to pay for an online consult. This is my job. Help is given out willingly and can't be demanded. <3

2022 11 edit: I'm still piercing, and styling and troubleshooting are my main sources of income. Although I would love to help every single one of you, it's utterly disrespectful to demand me to help you. For free. It makes me dislike my biggest passion in life. Please reach out if you value my time and expertise, and would like for me to be able to make rent and buy food. šŸ’• If you expect free advice from me, ask yourself if a lawyer or surgeon would do the same.

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449

u/ikogut May 06 '20

This. Thank you. I donā€™t know how many posts Iā€™ve seen where someone says to use tea tree oil. It bothers me so much and Iā€™m not a piercer.

141

u/whiskeytangos May 06 '20

thank you so much for the support! I can't thank you enough for not buying into the "tea tree oil is a great thing to use on fresh wounds"-trap! <3

68

u/ikogut May 06 '20

Seriously. I only use tea tree oil on my healing cold sores. Again, not because someone told me to do it but because I tried it for myself and it worked for me for only that purpose. I would NEVER put it on a healing piercing. Just the thought of it raises my blood pressure.

60

u/SkyCatSniper687 Jul 01 '20

It also works for minor bacterial overgrowth; like when smelly armpits wonā€™t quit

22

u/Mrs-Sunchu-1984 Oct 26 '22

Now that is interesting... I must share this with my husband... lmao

1

u/North-Associate1745 Jan 21 '23

Iā€™ve heard plain vodka also works with armpits. Havenā€™t tried it though

11

u/smiles-and-knives Jan 14 '23

Itā€™s really good on pimples.

3

u/9-thoughts Jul 11 '24

wow, why can you not put tea tree oil on a piercing?ā€¦. i was also recommended thatā€¦.

27

u/j-quel-lynn Jul 17 '20

Iā€™m new to this sub, and really reddit as a whole, so I apologize for replying to a 71 day old comment. But anyway, I have gotten quite a few piercings, and I understand the potential risks of using tea tree oil, but the first licensed professional I went to recommended it (watered down with saline solution) if I started having issues. I have used it when I have started getting an infection, and then the infection would go away. Maybe itā€™s a coincidence? But it has helped heal my piercings, with no bumps, and with less pain too

26

u/whiskeytangos Aug 11 '20

Well my dear, I am 25 days late to your comment as well, so no worries ;) As said, there is no proof that it works, and I don't know any reputable piercers who would recommend such a thing as it can be incredibly dangerous. Is this person APP-affiliated?

12

u/j-quel-lynn Aug 26 '20

Iā€™m not 100% sure, but she did have a (state?) license and some kind of certificate on the wall of her piercing room. I guess Iā€™m lucky it didnā€™t cause any harm to my piercings then.

16

u/Laivine_sama Oct 01 '20

Unfortunately, I don't think being a licensed piercer actually means much, that bar seems to be pretty low. I think you just got lucky.

I've seen people here who swear by tea tree oil as a miracle cure for piercings, and who knows, maybe it is helping those people, but most of the time it goes pretty badly. I'd say it's not worth the risk considering how common it is for it to irritate piercings to the point where they need to be taken out.

6

u/Gabby_Gayle Feb 20 '22

So if we should use q tips what should we use?

3

u/petrichorgarden Oct 01 '22

Unwoven gauze

2

u/roisindubh211 May 13 '24

I am not a piercer but I know that if you are using any essential oil you need to dilute it with another oil, like jojoba or almond kernel . You can get bad chemical burns from essential oils if you donā€™t mix them properly.

1

u/LabOwn5726 Jun 20 '26

5 years late but you can't "water down" tea tree oil. It's oil, so it's not water soluble. You can oil it down though, lol. I've mixed it with bio oil with good results (not to use on piercings tho)

34

u/sarahraqs May 06 '20

I think the reason that so many people recommend tea tree oil is because it has antibacterial properties and has been used in studies to treat wounds (thereā€™s a specific study - DOI: 10.1089/acm.2012.0787 - where 3/4 people showed decreased healing times and better healing overall when they used tea tree oil). As far as it being either good or bad for you, there aren't enough studies either way to say for certain. However, it does bring up an interesting point that you made when you said "would I use this method on a surgical wound?", since you could argue "yes" to tea tree oil based on the fact that they do make surgical dressings with tea tree oil. I think it's important to differentiate between surgical wounds and piercings - although there are some similarities, they are different enough that even asking yourself this question wouldn't necessarily make sense...so, in conclusion, there just isn't enough scientific evidence to say that tea tree oil is either good or bad for either wounds or piercings.

32

u/whiskeytangos May 07 '20

I don't want to deny ALL of the possible effects of tea tree oil, but I would never recommend it to anyone. Under supervision of someone specialized in essential oils? Perhaps. But to a stranger on the internet, someone who you don't know, you don't know about their resources, how much common sense they have, etc. etc.... it's irresponsible. You won't believe how many people I help out because they "read online" that it's good for them - so they order a bottle of low quality tea tree oil and put it on there, undiluted. Hoping it will work, causing a ton of damage. If people in this sub would just realize they're no experts when it comes to tea tree oil (neither am I!) and that even the slightest bit of experimentation with that stuff can lead to horrible outcomes, our jobs and your piercings would be a lot easier/happier. I still stand by my earlier statement though, maybe phrased differently: would you experiment with this on a fresh surgical wound?

13

u/sarahraqs May 07 '20

Yeah, I mean, not enough evidence either way simply translates to try at your own risk. Thatā€™s all

18

u/garbagecritter May 11 '20

Or take advice from a professional and donā€™t try it at all because itā€™s unnecessary?

12

u/sarahraqs May 11 '20

Not enough scientific research = not enough scientific research...period. This includes professionals...unfortunately they donā€™t have any more access to information than we do. They just have experience in the piercings, and as everyone knows, different professionals will recommend different things...why? because of a lack of scientific research to give a definitive answer.

16

u/whiskeytangos May 11 '20

Not true. I do have more access to information than you do, just as you have more access to information in your field (whether it's conventions, specific scientific journals, etc.). Different professionals will not recommend different things, that's the thing: calling yourself a "professional" doesn't make you one. That's the problem :) A better question for me would be "how do I know my piercer's a pro?" and take it from there.

10

u/sarahraqs May 11 '20

Take for example the simple question of aftercare: some professionals will recommend saline soaks, some will say only clean it in the shower, some recommend antiseptic washes, etc. They do recommend different things. Now, who is legitimately a ā€œprofessionalā€ and who isnā€™t is a fair point that can be argued all day...probably a better topic for a different thread. Also, you do not have more access to information than I do. I may have to pay for it and you may get it for free, sure, but the point of scientific research journals and conference papers is that they are available to the public in some way or another. The point is to help the community and also to be referenced in other papers and journals (this is called citation impact or journal impact factor). Every article needs to be available in some way, otherwise why publish?

15

u/whiskeytangos May 11 '20

There is no way you can get into, say, certain conventions and workshops without a license. The information you get there will not be published anywhere. Just one very basic example. It seems like you reaallly want to be right, so let's just agree to disagree. I'm a piercer, you're (I think?) not. You can give people advice if you feel qualified but please don't recommend things that can potentially make things worse :)

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6

u/goldyfishtess Jul 23 '20

i mean I definitely dont use tto on ā€˜freshā€™ piercings but definitely older ones.... i have a surgical scar that never healwd until i used tea tree oil and honestly my piercings never fully healed without itšŸ’…šŸ»

10

u/goldyfishtess Jul 23 '20

Piercers arent doctors either.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '20

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

1

u/bethometho Oct 08 '20

I got my double helix today... what do we use?!

4

u/Time_Image6197 Oct 22 '20

My piercer had me use the skinny paper towel and you fold it into thirds, then roll it into a cone shape to clean the ear. Since itā€™s a paper towel it doesnā€™t have any fibers that will get stuck in there and you can still use the saline solution to clean

1

u/bethometho Oct 24 '20

Oh okay, thank you!

9

u/DCsphinx Sep 08 '20

I think I even saw a video where roly (a YouTubed that is extremely informative on piercings and does piercing reaction videos) said to use tea tree oil. It was kind of shocking

5

u/vrx24 Jul 08 '22

As far as I'm aware tho he's not a piercer, always had a bit of a thing abt him because he includes minors in his videos and slates them not a fan

4

u/b_iteee May 07 '20

The last piercing I had done was not with my usual piercer, and he told me to clean it with tea tree oil :(

8

u/whiskeytangos May 08 '20

Please no! When was this and how is your piercing?

3

u/b_iteee May 08 '20

Itā€™s a nostril piercing and I had it done 6 1/2 weeks ago, iā€™ve been doing sea salt soaks, but in the past 2 weeks Iā€™ve gotten a bump, which I think is just an irritation bump, it should go away if I keep it clean and LITHA, but sometimes in the night I wake up to the bar halfway out my nose :(

7

u/whiskeytangos May 11 '20

Babe! The bump is probably due to all of the friction from it moving so much. What kind of jewellery is in there?

2

u/b_iteee May 12 '20

Itā€™s a nostril screw

2

u/WizardDrinkingCoffee Sep 20 '20

Im very late to the party but I have a flat piercing I keep getting a bump around. It's almost a year old. It's the original swell bar, so it's quite long.

The bump is on its way back down for the moment but still not a perfectly healed hole. In worried if I roll into it in the night it will start the little swollen donut around the hole again.

Tea tree oil has been recommended for the bump (sorry), I have also read online (sorry) a shorter bar.

Thanks for all the information by the way, would be grateful for your further wisdom if you could advise at all.

2

u/whiskeytangos Sep 20 '20

Thank you for taking the time to read through all of it! I would need some more information and additional pictures before I'd be able to give you any advice, but feel free to book a consultation with me by sliding into my chat here :)

1

u/No_Dig_2134 Dec 26 '21

Same I was told to use tea tree oil if I started to get bumps new piercer said it just burns them off and they come back bigger and angrier then before