In recent years, it has become mainstream for women (and often men) to wear multiple ear piercings – and not just in their lobes. Helix (the upper ear), daith (the knobbly bit, halfway up), tragus (between the daith and lobe), conch (the ear’s recess) piercings and many more, can now be seen on bank managers, executives, stay-at-home parents and even one vicar I met recently. As the owner of six (and counting) ear piercings myself, I’m all for it; but they must be done properly to be a pleasure.
I feel strongly about piercing guns, in so far as I loathe them, utterly. In my considerable experience of hearing readers ask how to treat skin allergies caused by nickel or piercings, I’ve found that the sticky, icky, sore and oozy-eared have almost always been pierced with a gun.
I advise people to remove the earrings, allow holes to close, then to visit not a jeweller’s or fashion store – but a proper piercing shop, full of heavily pierced experts who are invariably obsessed with their art. This nearly always reveals that they don’t have a metal allergy at all.
I’m a case in point. I spent my adolescence with such horribly sticky, sore, weeping ears (having been pierced twice by a gun). I became convinced that, princess and the pea-like, I could (barely) tolerate only solid gold.
As an adult, I was repierced with a needle by a burly, 80% tattooed piercer (at Metalmorphosis in London, but any council-licensed dedicated piercing shop is fine) and can now wear any old market tat without so much as an itch. I’ve sent many of my friends and readers down the same path, with life-changing results.
Proper needle piercings simply heal better, cleaner and permanently, in a way that gun piercings, for many of us, don’t.
Which isn’t to say nothing can go wrong with a needle. The trend for inserting precious jewellery into a piercing on day one (and I’ve done this several times myself), isn’t ideal for all. Less risky – if initially less attractive – is to get a titanium earring, shaped appropriately for the location of the piercing, for the first six to eight weeks, such as those at Punktured, from £2 (where I’ve also been pierced brilliantly).
I always clean my new sites by washing them with warm water under the tap whenever I brush my teeth, but purists will prefer Boots Sterile Saline (£2.99 for 360ml). Use twice daily.
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