• There is no product you can use that will make your piercings heal--what's ultimately doing the healing is your body and its immune system! As such, our recommended piercing aftercare is to create an ideal environment for your body to progress through the stages of puncture wound healing with minimal interruption. Here are a few simple rules to follow:

• DON'T twist, turn, or touch your jewelry, and avoid putting any physical pressure on your piercing. This includes sleeping on it, wearing headphones/hats that compress the piercing. Lastly, avoid snagging the jewelry! You essentially want to keep the jewelry as stationary as possible while it is healing.

• DON'T use harsh chemicals or cleaners such as rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, tea tree oil, Bactine, or Neosporin. These products are not recommended for use in puncture wounds by their manufacturers, and can cause more harm than good for your piercing. If shampoo, hair spray, or lotion gets into your piercing, rinse the area well with warm water. A good rule of thumb: if it will sting your eyes, it's going to sting your new piercing! So don't use it.

• DO irrigate the piercing site 1-2x/day by rinsing it under running warm water in the shower, or by using an isotonic/body-neutral sterile saline wound wash spray (0.9% sodium chloride). As you are healing, it will be normal to see crusties (byproducts of the wound healing process) forming around the exit and entry points of your new piercing. This is similar to a scab in that you don't want to pick it off, but you also don't want it to build up excessively on your jewelry. As such, rinsing is the best way to clean because it will encourage any crusties that are ready to fall off to wash away on their own, without you needing to touch the piercing.

• DO try to keep the piercing dry in between rinses, as excess moisture can impede the wound healing process. If you shower at night, tie your hair back so the piercing is not left wet. It's an especially good idea to blow dry your daith, rook, tragus, forward helix, or navel piercing on a cool air setting, as those nooks and crannies tend to retain moisture. You may use a Q-tip--gently--to remove moistened crusties post-rinse.

• DO downsize your jewelry once the swelling has subsided (typically after 4-6 weeks). We use a longer piece of jewelry initially in order to accommodate for swelling. Once the swelling has gone down, you don't need all that extra length -- and that extra length can actually cause movement and irritation. Downsized posts are on us, free of charge.

• DO get plenty of sleep, stay hydrated, eat well, and manage your stress levels. These factors absolutely impact your immune system's ability to heal. Even after a full healing period, we recommend wearing jewelry at all times to prevent shrinkage/closure of the piercing channel.

• A few common healing time frames:

  • Earlobe, septum, eyebrow, lip: 4-6 months

  • Helix, conch, flat, forward helix, faux rook, tragus, nostril: 6-9 months

    Rook, daith, nipple, navel, bridge, lobe orbital: 9-12 months

  • Industrial, cartilage orbital: 12+ months

  • Even after a full healing period, we recommend wearing jewelry at all times to prevent shrinkage or even closure of the piercing channel.

Fresh piercings typically experience an inflammation period of about 4-6 weeks; inflammation is one of the stages of wound healing.

To accommodate for this, and to reduce the risk of “embedding” (where the jewelry is too short for the amount of inflammation present, and is subsequently pulled into the tissue), we start with a longer post. With the way our jewelry works, we can swap the length of your wearing surface (e.g. ball- or flat-back post, barbell shaft, etc.) while keeping the decorative endpiece you chose the same.

Once the swelling subsides, your piercing does not need all of that extra length on the jewelry and in fact, if you aren’t super careful, can get snagged more easily on hair, towels, etc. This snagging can cause trauma to the tissue and delay your wound healing.

Additionally, keeping the post too long past the end of the inflammation period can lead to “angle drift” if your cartilage piercing is repeatedly slept on, or pressure is otherwise placed on it through hats, heavy hair, over-ear headphones, etc. For oral piercings, keeping the post too long can lead to dental damage.

Because downsizing is so critical to your piercing’s health, we offer downsizes free of charge for piercings performed at Rosefinch. For piercings performed elsewhere, we offer a downsize discount on the cost of the post/barbell shaft and waive the jewelry change fee.

To be clear, this is not a question of endurance—you theoretically could sit for dozens of piercings! But, our main concern is always your long-term healing. The more you are healing, the harder it is to heal. Your immune system has a finite number of resources.

To minimize the demands healing piercings inevitably places on one's immune system, we will only perform up to 3-4 piercings (depending on what those piercings are) in a single session. We generally recommend 1-2 piercings at a time for ease of healing; this can be staggered out by a month, minimally. Some folks will get 1-2 piercings and add another 1-2 piercings at their downsize/check-up appointment—as long as things are healing well!

We will only perform cartilage piercings on one ear at a time (i.e. no paired conches, helix on one side and tragus on the other, etc). This is to reduce the risk of healing complications and irreversible angle drift often caused by sleeping on fresh piercings; we want you to have an ear to sleep on, use the phone with, etc. while healing your piercings!

• Swimming: If you have plans to swim or have vacation plans, we highly recommend holding off until afterwards to get pierced. To avoid infection risks, it is critical that fresh piercings are not submerged within pools, hot tubs, lakes, or other enclosed bodies of water for the first 6-8 weeks of wound healing.

• Travel: We recommend waiting until after air travel to get pierced, as the combination of stress, cabin pressure/dehydration, and changes in climate can lead to unusual/excess swelling in fresh piercings.

• To avoid closure of the piercing channels, jewelry must be worn at all times for the entire duration of the healing process, and even for a good while after healing is complete. It is best to schedule your piercing for a period of time where you do not anticipate having to remove your jewelry for several months (e.g. removal for sports, medical procedures, interviews, etc.).

  • Other lifestyle considerations:

  • If you regularly wear a stethoscope or ear buds, a daith or tragus piercing will not be able to heal.

  • Similarly, wearing high-waisted pants greatly impacts the ability of navel piercings to heal successfully and increases the risk of migration/rejection.

  • In general: continued sources of outside pressure will negatively impact healing! This includes sleeping on your piercings (see: section on angle drift).

• You should ideally refrain from swimming throughout the entire duration of your healing process. At minimum, 6-8 weeks, but make sure to irrigate and dry the area especially well afterwards.

If pressure is continuously placed on a cartilage piercing while it is healing (e.g. from sleeping on it, headphones, heavy hair, masks, etc.), that pressure will cause your jewelry to pivot, and your body will actually heal your piercing channel at a wonky angle.

Please watch this video by Lola Slider for a helpful visual demonstration.

As a piercing changes from perpendicular to angled, the body tries to offset the pressure the jewelry is placing on the tissue by developing irritation bumps. These bumps may progress into permanent scar tissue. This also lengthens your piercing’s healing time substantially, as you now have to heal a longer piercing channel than is necessary.

Once a piercing channel has drifted, there is no way to undo the shift. We would ultimately recommend removal.

If your piercing does manage to heal despite the drift, your jewelry options may be limited; flat pieces will no longer sit flat to your tissue, and rings will not hang evenly from the piercing channel.

The best way to avoid angle drift is prevention: sleeping on your other side, and/or sleeping on a piercing pillow, as well as coming in for your downsize appointment as soon as your inflammation period is over. This is why we offer free downsizes on piercings performed at Rosefinch—we care about the long-term health of your piercing!

In short, no—the reason being that numbing cream can change the texture and density of your tissue in unpredictable ways. If numbed tissue is pierced, there is a good chance that the placement/angle will be off once the tissue relaxes, which carries serious consequences as far as your piercing’s ability to heal.

Additionally, topical numbing would not necessarily affect the sensation of getting pierced. The only way to fully numb the area would be via injection—and that would simply be more painful than the piercing!

Lastly, the piercing is so fast, numbing is not truly necessary. We pierce with breathing cues—a nice deep breath in, and a deep breath out—and it’s over.

Please see this article for more information!

Products such as Bactine, Neosporin, rubbing alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide are intended for external use only. A piercing is a puncture wound, so antiseptics are much too harsh for the new, fragile tissue being built within and as part of your piercing channel.

All we recommend is irrigating your piercing with clean, plain water and/or sterile saline wound wash (0.9% sodium chloride).

If you choose to use saline, there’s nothing about the saline that’s making your piercing heal. It is simply a neutral way to rinse your piercing as it heals!

• Depends on what you want to change your jewelry to! If you just want to change the decorative end of your threadless/threaded stud, we can do that as soon as you come in for your downsize. The beauty of these jewelry systems is that we are simply changing out the decorative end of the jewelry while leaving the post itself in place -- which means that the healing piercing channel is relatively undisturbed. We still recommend having us help you with changes while you are healing, so that we may ensure everything is both properly sterilized and swapped out as gently as possible!

• If you want to change to a seam (continuous) ring, we recommend waiting for your piercing to be fully healed (earlobes: 3-5 months, hard cartilage 6-12 months).

  • Why such a long wait? The shape of a ring can put a lot of pressure on the entry and exit points of your piercing, which - if the piercing is not yet fully healed - can cause major setbacks in your healing process. The movement of a ring (and especially the motion of a seam or hinge sliding through the piercing channel) can also cause excess irritation inside the already fragile piercing channel. It's best to make sure your piercing is fully settled before switching to a ring.

• Even after a full healing period, we recommend wearing jewelry at all times to prevent shrinkage or even closure of the piercing channel.

• Piercings are more commonly irritated rather than infected. However, if you do suspect bacterial infection (pain, red streaks emanating from the piercing site, green or smelly discharge, fever, nausea, or vomiting), please see a medical professional as soon as you can.

• Piercings often become irritated in response to some sort of intrinsic or extrinsic health factor(s).

  • Intrinsic factors may include nutritional status, sleep, stress levels, or overall health status. For example, it's not uncommon for piercings to flare up around finals week or a major work deadline.

  • Extrinsic factors affecting wound healing include mechanical stress (like a snag, or sleeping on the piercing), excessive moisture, chemical stress (like the use of oils/creams/ointments), changes in climate, or inappropriate jewelry (like wearing a style or metal not suited for initial piercings).

• We do not recommend applying any cleaners/creams/oils to your piercing when it's irritated or if it develops a bump, as that can actually exacerbate the problem. The best way to soothe an irritated piercing is to figure out what caused the irritation, and eliminate the source -- then the irritation should subside with time.

• We do not recommend removing the jewelry if you want to keep your piercing open! The jewelry is what keeps the piercing channel open with 100% certainty. An irritated piercing will likely close up much faster than a healthy piercing, but collagen shrinks even in healthy, well-established piercings when jewelry is removed. This leads to shrinkage of the piercing channel or sometimes even closure.

• Trying to insert jewelry into a piercing channel that has shrunken down can cause further damage to your piercing. This should only be attempted by a professional piercer.

• We do, however, suggest the use of dry hot compresses 2-3x/day to stimulate immune response if a piercing is flaring up.

• Feel free to make and appointment or send us an email with some photos so we can figure out what's irritating your piercing, and develop a game plan!

• You can find a microwaveable gel hot/cold pack at your local pharmacy. There are also a few ways to make one at home! First, cover the piercing with sterile gauze (preferred), fresh paper towel, or clean cloth.

  • Microwave a wet paper towel or washcloth for 1-2 minutes and pack it inside a clean Ziploc bag

  • Microwave dry rice inside a cloth bag until warm

• The dry heat source should be bearably hot, but not painfully so; if it's too hot, let it cool before applying it to the area. We recommend holding up the dry heat source for 10 minutes, 2-3x a day if a piercing is irritated.

• Heat stimulates blood flow/immune response and encourages drainage. We prefer the use of dry heat rather than soaking the piercing because the latter can actually impede wound healing by causing moisture issues.

• "Increasing the temperature of chronic wounds to 38 °C may help to induce healing by increasing blood flow and improving the availability of oxygen." ("Local warming therapy for treating chronic wounds: A systematic review." Yue et al. 2018)

• We only recommend cold compresses (no ice directly on the piercing) in two situations:

• To manage pain for the first 48 hours after getting pierced. We do not want to delay the inflammation phase of wound healing for too long, however, as that is a necessary step in the wound healing process.

• To manage sudden and unexpected swelling during the healing process. If this happens, please come in for a longer post (“upsize”).

• Low/fluctuating temperatures can trigger/exacerbate swelling in both piercings old and new, as well as slow down the healing process overall. It's important to limit the amount of time you spend outside in the cold with your piercings uncovered (i.e. wear a hood or clean, loose scarf). And drink plenty of water to keep your skin well-hydrated!

Healing piercings can close up quite quickly when the jewelry is removed. Even after they are fully healed, certain placements such as nostril or nipple piercings carry a higher risk of shrinking significantly or even closing up completely without jewelry in them for a period of time. Everyone’s body is different, so it is difficult to predict how quickly that might happen, if at all.

To mitigate this risk, we’d recommend wearing a glass retainer during your procedure; they are $12/ea. We are happy to assist with insertion, especially if your piercing is still healing!

Now, keep in mind that glass retainers are not quite as secure as threadless or internally threaded jewelry, so wearing a glass retainer should be considered a temporary thing. We’d recommend reinserting your regular jewelry as soon as you can post-procedure.

We have a specific “Glass Retainer” appointment option on our booking page.