Aftercare Series Part 2- General Aftercare
My last blog post addressed an introduction to piercing aftercare and healing concepts! Today we are going to be discussing general aftercare- this means methods and tips for cleaning for most piercings. The advice here is just general care and cleaning advice. In the coming weeks we are going to look specifically at oral piercings, genital piercings, and surface piercings, so stay tuned for more specific information for those! In the first post we already discussed how piercings heal and saline as the best product for healing piercings. We also talked about what products you want to avoid on healing piercings, so we won’t be reviewing these things here. If you haven’t already, read that blog first!
Crusty Cleaning
As we know from the first blog in this series, our bodies really do the work of healing piercings. We are just here to clean up after them. What that means is removing the crust and debris that naturally forms around our piercings. And, as we know, saline is the best product to use to do so! You can either spray it directly on the piercing to irrigate away crust or debris, or use it on a q-tip to clean away debris. What method will work best for you will depend on your body, your piercing, and your healing needs. If you find just saline spray works, awesome! But if it’s not getting things clean enough, you may find q-tips more precise. And you can learn more about using q-tips for cleaning and some pros and cons in this blog post.
As far as how often to clean, that really depends on your body! A good rule of thumb is to check your piercing 2-3 times a day. If you notice there’s crust and debris, clean it away. If there’s nothing there, then you don’t need to clean! Remember your body is healing this piercing, not the saline you use. So the saline isn’t going to magically heal your piercings, its just there to remove that crust and debris. If there’s no debris there, there’s nothing to clean! Everyone heals differently and some people produce a lot of crust and debris and need to clean more often. Some one produce very little and can get away with cleaning less often. Pay attention to your body and clean it as it needs it.
What If I don’t have saline?
If you’ve run out of saline, misplaced a bottle, or may be traveling, honestly clean water works just as well. Let the shower water run over the piercing a little longer, take some bottled water on a q-tip to clean things off. Remember the saline is not medicine, it’s just there to be something mild enough to clean away the debris without hurting the healing skin around it. Many of us feel like we need something, some product to feel like we are really cleaning our piercings. So in the absence of saline may turn to things like alcohol or peroxide. But the products we use aren’t what’s healing our piercings, our bodies are. And harsh chemicals like that can actually damage the fragile healing tissue of the piercing and cause more harm than good. So if you somehow run out of saline, just use water.