Almost Famous Body Piercing Safe Stretching Brochure
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Safe Stretching Guide Aftercare for a Stretch Approximate • Wash your newly sretched piercing twice daily with glycerin soap. This will help remove the crusties and Healing Times keep your piercing clean. Remember not to let anyone else use your soap! Cartilage: 6 months to 1 year or longer • Soak your piercing twice daily for three to five minutes Earlobe: 6-8 weeks in a warm sea salt solution. Use 1/4 teaspoon sea salt Navel: 6 months to 1 year or longer with one cup of warm water. The water should be just warm enough to dissolve the salt, but not so warm that Lip, Tongue, Nostril: 3 to 6 months or longer it turns your skin red. Eyebrow: 3 to 6 months • Apply two to three drops of Jojoba oil to the stretched Genitals: 4 weeks to 6 months or more piercing twice daily after the sea salt soak and massage gently. Labret: 6-8 weeks • Don’t touch your piercing unless you’ve washed your Nipple: 2-6 months hands, and remember — see a doctor if you think your Septum: 6-8 weeks or longer piercing has become infected. The Next Stretch and Beyond Surface piercings are considered temporary *Please keep in mind that these approximate When you’re sure your piercing is again completely healing times are only estimates. The unique healed, and you aren’t getting any more discharge from your piercing... healing power of each body, and whether or not you do your aftercare may shorten or lengthen any • Apply one drop of Emu oil to the front and back of healing process. piercing twice daily for three to five days before your next stretch. If you think your piercing may be infected, contact • Remember to insert your jewelry from the opposite side a medical professional immediately. Signs of of the piercing each time you stretch. This prevents infection include one or all of the follwoing: drain- blow outs. (That’s when it looks like your piercing is age, your piercing feels hot, your piercing hurts turning inside out.) worse than when you got it pierced, you may be • Begin from the beginning... Start with the warm running a fever. compress and glycerin soap wash, and continue with Remember not to change your jewelry the rest of the directions for stretching. until your piercing is healed. If you REMEMBER: The slower the better! have questions, check with your piercer. If you think you have an West Acres Mall infection, see a doctor. Fargo, ND • 701-492-3955 Crossroads Mall St. Cloud, MN • 320-252-0484 Mall of America Disclaimer: These guidelines are based on a combination of professional Bloomington, MN • 952-854-8000 experience, common sense, research, and clinical practice. This information is not to be considered a substitute for medical advice. ©2011 Body Stars, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Safe Stretching Guide Remember: When you stretch your ears, you Just Don’t Do It Getting Started are creating a new wound. BE GENTLE and Silicone should not be used for stretching. Plugs or patient when stretching! Be careful that you eyelets made of silicone are great for healed lobes as Go slow and be patient! Rome wasn’t built in a day, don’t make yourself bleed while stretching. they are comfortable to wear. Using silicone jewelry for and you won’t go from a 16 gauge hole to a 2 gauge a stretch can cause the lining of the earlobe to tear hole immediately either. Your success is based on Before You Stretch during the stretch. Since silicone is waterproof and gentle, effective stretches over weeks and months. airtight, the jewelry can trap infection inside the lobe. Pre-Care for a Stretch Stretching can be a permanent change to your body. Don’t use double flared jewelry while stretching. The Depending on each individual’s capacity to heal, and flare is sometimes two sizes larger than the center of Stretch ONLY healed piercings!! skin elasticity, once you pass a certain size stretch, it the jewelry, making insertion painful, and increasing the • Always wash your hands well. may be impossible for the skin to shrink back to a chance of permanent damage to the ear. “normal” size piercing. • Two weeks before your first stretch, apply Emu oil Never simply shove anything through your lobes. This Ways to Stretch around the perimeter of the piercing you want to is known as “dead stretching,” and can lead to tearing, stretch. Apply one drop of oil to the front and back of or a nasty blow-out. A blow-out is when the skin on the Tapering the piercing twice daily and massage into skin. inside of the pierced lobe gets pushed out. This inside • When you are ready to insert the stretching taper out look can become permanent if the jewelry isn’t Tapering is by far the most common way to stretch ears (after the two weeks of using Emu oil daily), apply a removed immediately!! In some cases, especially if you one size at a time. Tapering uses a rod with gradual warm (NOT hot) compress to the piercing for serveral stretch your ears yourself, you won’t notice this has increase in diameter to widen the hole as the taper is minutes. Wash the area to be stretched with glycerin happened until it’s too late. Dead stretching can also inserted. Once the hole is to the desired size, a plug or soap and rinse well. Pat the area dry. tunnel can be inserted into the stretched piercing. cause tearing and scarring, and make it harder to • Apply a generous amount (3-5 drops) of Jojoba oil to stretch past a certain point. Tapering is most successful when done for you by a professional piercer. the front and back of the piercing. When you stretch, you are pulling the collagen • GENTLY slide stretching taper into the piercing until You can help make tapering more successful by molecules and skin cells, and everything else in that you experience mild discomfort. If your skin turns moisturizing with Jojoba Oil and pulling gently on your immedate area, apart and asking your body to produce white around the jewelry, back the jewelry up slightly. lobes for several days before the actual stretch. more collagen and skin cells in order to fill the spaces That white ring of skin is your danger signal... you’re you’ve created during the stretch. This takes time. Weights and Pulling stretching too much! To keep your lobes from getting too thin, never skip Weights can be worn to aid in stretching. This is the • Slide a smaller o-ring onto the stretching taper, sizes or rush a stretch. Proper stretching is not a race, best way to stretch once you get into larger sizes, since stopping just before the o-ring touches your skin. and takes time. Never make your lobes bleed when the stretch is so slow, your body has ample time to Your piercing may be uncomfortable for a few days. you are stretching!! Skipping a size or rushing a stretch grow cells and maintain health in the area. (It might feel like it did just after you had it pierced for will cause problems for you down the road, and may the first time.) You might experience throbbing pain, keep you from reaching your stretching goal. Pulling is a manual way to stretch and can be helpful in loosening tight skin. GENTLE pulling on healed ears to itching, or swelling. DON’T stretch to the point of Keeping your lobes moisurized during a stetch is key. help stretch them slowly can be effective when moving bleeding!! Both Jojoba and Emu oil massages can be used to up one size at a time. • After each stretch is completely healed, give your increase circulation and help encourage new, healthy Taping body a minimum of two more weeks to heal and cell growth. Choose one oil, or alternate oils, and regenerate the area. This length of time allows your massage a few drops into both sides of the piercing Taping is one of the best ways to stretch slowly. Use a body to heal completely by growing new cells and and surrounding skin. skin safe, non adhesive tape like Stretch It! stretching getting rid of the cells that it no longer needs. tape that sticks only to itself. Wrap the tape over your The taper should be inserted from front to back on jewelry one or two layers (at most) at a time. Add one stretch, and then back to front on the next stretch another layer or two every few days to gradually to keep both sides of the hole the same size. increase the diameter of the jewelry and reach the next size. If you are still getting crusty discharge after two weeks, give your piercing several more days to heal before you attempt another stretch..