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Saturday, May 23, 2015

How to Clean an Industrial Piercing

Hello, everyone!

Since I get most of my hits on my blog from people researching industrial piercings, I decided to go ahead and post a very basic thing that I know I researched a ton before getting mine done: how to clean it.

Of course, I am not a licensed piercer so take my advice at your own risk but I can assure you that I researched this extensively and that I ended up taking an alternative route to the normal.

There are two ways to clean any piercing but with industrials you have to be a little more diligent and careful because they are temperamental piercings. First of all, basics: wash your hands with antibacterial hand soap every time before you clean your ear, preferably one without moisturizers in it because the less additives near your piercing the better. Don't put lotion or oil or anything on your hands until after you're finished cleaning your ear. Don't touch the actual piercing sites. Clean it twice a day (or if that's too much for your piercing like it was for mine, you CAN do it once a day but make sure it gets cleaned AT LEAST ONCE a day). Don't skip a day or a cleaning. Industrials are not piercings you can skip out on cleaning. You WILL feel it if you don't clean it. Don't use alcohol on it. Don't use hydrogen peroxide. Don't use Bactine. Don't use Neosporin. Don't use Triple Antibiotic Cream. All of these will only harm/irritate your piercing and, if you read their instructions, tell you not to use them on puncture wounds. And guess what piercings are: puncture wounds. Also, some people use both of these methods in combination. There's no need to do that. It might just prolong the healing period because you'd probably just dry it out.

SEA SALT SOAK METHOD:

First method is the most accepted, widely recommended, preferred method and that is sea salt soaks. You heat up 8 ounces (one cup) of purified or distilled water (you can use tap water but it's safer to use the aforementioned types, but *cough* I used tap water *cough*) as hot as you can comfortably handle it. You don't want to accidentally burn yourself. Then you add a 1/4 of a teaspoon of NON-IDODIZED SEA SALT to the water and stir it up until it dissolves. DO NOT USE IODIZED TABLE SALT OR EPSOM SALT. Iodized salt and Epsom salt can irritate fresh piercings because of the additives in them. You can buy non-iodized sea salt at the grocery store. They come in inexpensive big tubs of it just like regular salt. However, they can be annoying because sea salt sticks together so you might have to knock it up against something to free up the salt particles every once in a while.

(off brands/generic brands are fine, just make sure it's non-iodized sea salt)

Anyway, after your salt is all dissolved, just submerge your ear into the cup of water. I found this easiest to do by sitting in a chair at my kitchen table with my cup of water on the table and hunching over to submerge my ear. Keep your ear in the sea salt water for FIVE TO TEN MINUTES. This can be a bit of trial and error. You'll be able to tell over time how long you should keep your ear in the solution. IT'S RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DO THIS METHOD TWICE A DAY, once in the morning, once at night. And make sure to RINSE your ear with warm, clean water after you're finished soaking it. If you don't, the sea salt can start to build up around the piercing sites and irritate them. When you're finished rinsing it, take a piece of paper towel and gently pat it dry. Don't use a regular towel. Regular towels can harbor bacteria and can cause an infection, especially in the beginning when your piercing is so susceptible. You can also dip in cotton pads/balls in the salt water solution and press them against your piercing sites, replacing them as the water cools on your ear, for five to ten minutes. However, it is MUCH more beneficial to submerge your ear than to do this.

The warm sea salt solution method helps to draw out impurities in your piercing as well as clean the lymph out that develops as a result of your piercing healing. It also helps soften the "crusties" (dried lymph) that develop as your piercing heals. When you first get the piercing, it will be excruciating to move the bar even a little. Simply soaking your piercing for the first week twice a day should be fine. However, if you start to develop the aforementioned crusties (usually crusties don't develop til after a week of healing time), you need to clean them off and clear them away from the piercing sites; otherwise they can cause you to develop an infection. As your piercing heals and crusties develop, soak your ear first; then take a q-tip, dip it into the sea salt solution and use it to clean the crusties off. Try not to move your bar too much because, first of all, it will hurt A LOT in the beginning stages of healing; and, second of all, because you can accidentally drag the crusties into your piercing which will, again, lead to infection. Crusties are perfectly normal. They're even good. They show that you are healing because they are the result of your body naturally healing itself from the inside and pushing out dead skin cells, etc. from the healing process. If however, you don't develop many crusties, don't be alarmed. Your piercing is more than likely still healing, it just doesn't develop as much lymph as other people's do. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO MOVE/TWIST YOUR BAR. The myth that your skin will heal to the bar if you don't twist it is exactly that: a myth. It's impossible for your skin to heal to the bar. And you will be doing more damage than good. Twisting/moving the bar will only irritate your piercing and can damage your fistulas (the healing piercing hole), prolonging the healing process. Your barbell will get moved because life is life but don't purposely move it around. As your piercing heals, you can move it up and down as little as possible in order to clear away the crusties but, like I said, do it as little as possible. And as you do it, keep in mind the way it's moving and try to clean the crusties that would get dragged into the piercing first before moving it to get to the rest. EXAMPLE: If you are going to push it UP, clean the inner holes first, then the bottom, then do the one on the top so they aren't being dragged through the piercing holes.

There are also sea salt sprays, such as H2Ocean, that you can purchase for your piercings. These are marketed as sea salt soaks in a bottle basically. They have added ingredients that can help speed up the process and encourage healing. These can usually be purchased through your piercer or a piercing shop or on the Internet where there is everything.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND USING A SEA SALT SPRAY AS YOUR MAIN METHOD OF CLEANING AN INDUSTRIAL PIERCING. Sea salt sprays can be helpful and I think they are great for piercings that are difficult to submerge, such as a lip piercing. But they have their limitations on something like an industrial. They can only clear away crusties, not draw out impurities in your piercing like a warm salt water solution can. Sea salt sprays are good for in between cleaning if you need it, but I definitely wouldn't use it as your regular twice a day cleaning method for an industrial.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE SEA SALT SOAK METHOD AND SEA SALT SPRAYS:

I hated the sea salt soak method. My body didn't like it. At all. It dried my piercing out. My piercing was constantly irritated. It prolonged my initial healing period. It just wasn't for me. I personally sea salt soaked my piercing twice a day for the first week and a half after getting it done. After that, I cut it down to once a day (only at night) because my piercing was feeling irritated and becoming dried out. I was actually developing dry skin on my ear from it and I naturally already have dry skin and live in a desert so it didn't do me many favors. I still stuck with the sea salt soak method for a month and a half to two months (I don't remember; it's been nearly two years now) before I switched to the second method of cleaning piercings. I tried using less sea salt (although 1/4 teaspoon to 8 ounces of water is the best ratio to make sure it gets clean) to try to curtail the dry skin but nothing worked. I didn't know this at the time, but you can use jojoba oil on the dry skin to help moisturize it. Of course, make sure not to get it into the healing piercing because duh. THE SEA SALT METHOD IS THE BEST METHOD TO USE. Most everyone has amazing results of using SSS but for some people, like me, it just doesn't work well. I would still recommend and deeply encourage using the SSS method for at least a month of your initial healing period and for the entire healing period if your body responds well to it. If however, you are like me and develop dry skin or if your piercing is consistently irritated, you may want to try the second method.

As far as sea salt sprays go, I don't like them either for ear piercings or really any piercing. I just don't like them. The spray goes everywhere if you try to spray it directly on the piercing (it's marketed to say that the spray comes out fast enough to clear away anything inside your piercing but meh) and it's difficult to control how much product comes out. Spraying it onto a q-tip then using it on your ear is okay, but I just didn't care for it personally.

ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP METHOD:

All right. Lots of people don't like this method. Say it's very bad for piercings, etc. But this is my preferred method and definitely worth trying if sea salt soaks don't work for you just like they didn't for me. For many piercing places, this is even the recommended method given by them but once again I would definitely encourage you to try sea salt soaks before going to this.

For this method, you use antibacterial soap and q-tips to clean the piercing. DO NOT USE HAND SOAP. I don't know why people use hand soap but just don't. Buy the DIAL GOLD BAR SOAP. The gold bar soap has little to no moisturizers in it so it is less likely to irritate your piercing.



Firstly, use warm, wet q-tips to wet the four piercing sites on your ear. Take a q-tip and rub it on the bar soap. Then use the q-tip to clean around the piercing hole. I would definitely recommend to err on the side of caution and don't use the same q-tip for all four piercing sites. If one of the holes is becoming infected, you could accidentally transfer the infection to the other piercing sites by contamination. I personally just used one end of the q-tip per piercing hole so I would use one end for the inside top hole, then flip it to the other end and clean the outside top hole, etc. Also, using a new end of the q-tip for each piercing site will prevent you contaminating the bar soap by repeatedly rubbing used soap onto the bar. After you're done cleaning around the holes, use clean wet q-tips to clean all of the soap off. It's important to make sure you get all of the soap because it can irritate your piercings and, once again, lead to an infection, or, even more likely, lead to hypertrophic scarring. DO NOT PURPOSELY GET THE SOAP INTO THE PIERCING. LOTS of uneducated people say that you need to get the soap into the piercing in order to clean it. Don't do that. Getting soap into the piercing will only irritate it (you might as well call hypertrophic scarring your new best friend) and there is NO NEED to get it into the piercing. Your body naturally is cleaning the piercing on the inside. Removing this debris (crusties) due to its cleaning/healing process is all you need to do. Let your body take care of the inside on its own. You can clean your piercing using this method twice a day as well; however, I only did it once a day because my piercing was happier that way. Listen to your body.

My piercing was MUCH happier after I switched to this method. It stopped being irritated IMMEDIATELY. It felt so so so much better. It also healed very quickly after I switched to this. It still took the entire six months for the initial healing but it would've been much longer if I had stuck with SSS because of the irritation SSS gave me. I never got any hypertrophic scarring or had any complications with my piercing.

And I think that's about it! I might do a post later on hypertrophic scarring vs. keloids (people drive me crazy about getting those two mixed up), and how to treat hypertrophic scarring (keloids are practically untreatable).







34 comments:

  1. Nice tips on industrial piercing cleaning, i like it. Thank you sharing this blog, good work.
    residential cleaning

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  2. I think sea salt irritates mine to bc its hurt n I was gone buy this h2ocean pray

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  3. Thanks for the tips, I'm starting off with the antibacterial soap, and find this method more convenient.

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    1. I definitely preferred the soap method and have recommended it to other people I know who had problems cleaning their piercings and they've had great results as well. :)

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  4. This was such a HUGE help thank you so much!

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    1. I got my industrial done on the 22nd of the 3rd 18 is it normal for pus to come out of your industrial piercing

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  5. Thank you for the tips I needed that because mine became infected because he told me Hydroperoxide would help it from NOT getting infected but now I'm washing it with warm water and soap and it feels good I wanna take it out for a night and give my ear a rest but I'm scared that it'll closed?

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    1. do not take it out, it will make the infection get worse then it already was..

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    2. I'm glad that my post helped you out. Taking it out would cause it to close if it's a new piercing and it would trap the infection in like Penguin Giraffe mentioned. I hope yours has done okay!

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  6. i honestly haven't actually cleaned mine in like a month or so and it is totally fine, i just use water on it and it doesnt hurt anymore.. i got mine done in August and its now January so i dont know.. people always say to clean it every day for a year but mine has been totally fine and very inexpensive :)

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    1. I've heard of people being able to just let their body heal it all on its own and they've healed in 4 months. I was paranoid and never tried to let it go (it was my first piercing). I definitely don't think anyone would need to keep cleaning it every day for a year, that seems excessive to me. I'm glad yours has healed well! :)

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  7. Thank you for this post, I just got mine done a few hours ago and my piercers instructions were pretty vague so I decided to look it up. Most videos i found on youtube even I knew were flat out wrong and bad advice but this is the most thorough explanation of how to do a proper sea salt soak that i've found. Thank you!

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    1. You're welcome! I found the same thing to be true on the videos available on YouTube so I wrote this post because of it. I'm glad that it was helpful. I hope your piercing has healed well! :)

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  8. Thank you reading this was very useful for me did mine about a month ago it was using the sea salt method it did not work it got infected went back by the guy would did it he recommended this method so far so good 🖒🖒

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    1. I'm glad that your piercing is doing well now! I think the soap method is too buried for those who don't react well to SSS so I'm glad you found the alternative to be better. :)

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  9. Hi. How do I go about cleaning the inside of the top hole? Do I uncurl the cartilage to get the soap in there?

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    1. If you're using a q-tip then you would just angle it around the cartilage. I'd try to avoid moving it as much as possible. :)

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  10. Hello, I completely understand that you're not a certified professional but I need any advice that I can get. I got my industrial about a week ago, and my ear is pretty swollen, red and has yellow pus coming out. The weird thing is, only the top hole seems to be infected. I've tried the SSS but it doesn't seem to be working. I'm going to see my piercer&Dr ASAP.

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    1. This is wayyy too late to be helpful in any way but for anyone in a similar situation reading the comments, this is definitely an infection. Seeing your piercer is important to confirm and a doctor can give you antibiotics for the infection. But regardless of advice DO NOT TAKE THE BAR OUT. It will trap the infection in and will cause more damage to your ear. Take your antibiotics and soak your ear until the infection is gone. If you want to take the bar out after that and allow it to heal over, that's fine, but do not do that until your infection is completely gone.

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  11. Totally gonna try the salt soak later today (its almost 1 am oops) if we have the right salt. I just got my industrial on Wednesday.

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  12. Thank you for the explanation and great tips! Very helpful I got mine done three weeks ago. It does not hurt anymore....Until the ball fell off. I didn't get the whole long barbell through my industrial I got two seperated jewelry. Long story short since the ball off I and my jewellery was about to fall out, I switched it completely. It's healing fairly well, no infection at all.

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    1. Glad that yours is healing well! I've hard of some piercers preferring to heal it with two separate bars instead of one connecting one. I think it just depends on preference/their experience as some piercers aren't skilled enough to line up the holes without the full barbell.

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  13. Megan: I'm 66 and just got my second piercing yesterday as a Thanksgiving gift to myself. You have given me all the info I need to care for this new piercing. My first one had to be removed recently because I had to have a MRI. I returned to my piercer to have it put back in. It almost hurt as much as an original piercing, but I love my piercings and enduring the minor pain is worth it. It is so very important to wash hands and not try to touch the piercing as a lot of people have a tendency to do. I wear glasses and I have very long dreads that often get tangled around the jewelry. I have to be extremely careful to untangle hair when this happens. Your glasses are not the cleanest either, so I use the salted solution to clean the part of my glasses that are close to the piercing. Again, thanks for all you help.

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    1. I'm glad that this was helpful for you! When I got this piercing, my glasses often hurt my ear because of how sensitive it was at the beginning. That is a good tip to clean the wings of your glasses though. I never thought of that. :)

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  14. Honestly, God bless you for this post. Got my industrial not even a week ago and it's my first piercing since originally getting my lobes done when I was six! I'm now nineteen and my piercer was vague about cleaning and general care. My sister (who has had several more piercings than me) told me I should rotate my bar while cleaning it but I decided to do some research first and came across this post. Very informative without coming off as condescending and exactly what I needed to soothe my worried soul. So happy I found it and will definitely try out these methods! Thanks a bunch!

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  15. Hello ! Thanks for this post but I'm not sure if my Industrial piercing is infected or just healing. I see a lot of posts that say that it's normal to be in pain I got my piercing about 1 week ago and I was doing fine untill my 5th day when I took a shower and a few hours later my ear was extremely irratated my mom insists on putting peroxide on it but I'm at a point where I have no idea what to do the sss have been working or seem too but I just wanna get rid of my infection as soon as I can what can I do?

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  16. But the person who dod my indistrial said to clean it with dial hand foaming soap idk what to do

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  17. Nice and interesting information and informative too.Can you please let me know the good attraction places we can visit: Industrial cleaning  in Navi Mumbai Midc

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  18. Great article Lot's of information to Read...Great Man Keep Posting and update to People..Thanks
    tks industrial company

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  19. I need help ASAP. So I pierce my own ears, been doing it for about 2 months now. I am surprisingly good. And I ordered the 14g needle and the stainless steel industrial piercings.Getting them done tomorrow or Wednesday.How much does the extreme pain last for? And Is it okay to wear a headband to keep my hair out of the way or is it better to tie it up.

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