#(yes I know to go to an actual proper parlor for piercing not claire's)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[palmett-hoes]

Ahhhhh I'm so sorry if this is a rlly annoying question!! You can ignore me if you want, that's okay. I wanted to ask, how hard was it to take care of your industrial piercing? (I've only had 1 piercing so far and it was a complete pain in the ass to clean and my hair kept getting caught in it :( very painful)

aaah i'm the wrong person to ask about this i have like,, insanely good luck with my piercings they've basically always healed perfectly and rarely get infected and i do NOT take very good care of them

with my industrial i slept on it and didn't clean it everyday and when i did i kept using rubbing alcohol (which you're NOT supposed to do. you should use either salt water or saline solution or just warm water with nonscented soap. alcohol kills the good bacteria along with the bad bacteria and is actually more likely to cause an infection in the long-term bc of this. for the same reason you don't want to OVER-wash a piercing while it's healing. one of my aunts did that when she had a belly button piercing and she told me it oozed for like a year, probably because she cleaned it obsessively like 3 times a day)

honestly cartilage piercings are super dicey and experiences vary really wildly. i was touching and playing with mine basically from the day i got it done and it's never given me any problems but i also know ppl who basically nudged theirs a little too roughly and developed a bump. one of my aunts (different aunt) says her cartilage piercing ached sometimes for like 20 years after she got it done (but she also got a lot of piercings done non-professionally so,,,, don't listen too much to that one)

honestly it comes down a lot to how your body reacts to piercings, but also the circumstances of your piercing. i don't know what piercing you have, but if you had a lot of problems with healing and infections that may be a problem for other piercings you may get. of course, it's also possible that you didn't get a very good piercing or you just didn't take care of it right, i don't know the circumstances

so,,, step 1. first try thinking on how your healing process generally goes, both for the piercing you have and general cuts, scrapes, and bug bites. do you get infections often? how is your general health? are you sick often? these are things that could indicate that you're just infection-prone and it's probably going to be a problem you have to deal with. i'm not telling you whether or not to get more piercings if you are, that's something you need to weigh the cost/benefit analysis of for yourself.

also try to note how you tend to scar. if you tend to get keloids or hypertrophics you're way more likely to get them on any cartilage piercings because they're already a more serious "injury" than plain skin piercings like a lobe or an eyebrow

another thing to look out for is how your body deals with different metals. i've known a lot of ppl who had metal allergies that restricted the kinds of jewelry they can wear. cheap metals can cause them to break out in rashes, and yes get infections more often during healing. generally your piercer should only be using surgical grade steel and/or titanium but it's still something to keep an eye on. think about if you often wear cheap or costume jewelry and how you react, especially if you wear if consistently for a long time. this can apply to things like bracelets and necklaces though cheap metal in your piercing is probably a better indicator bc it does go through your skin in a way i really hope your bracelets don't

then step 2 is make sure, MAKE SURE, that you're going to a good piercer. someone who is a trained professional in a sterile environment using the proper equipment and sanitizing correctly

NEVER go to claire's or piercing pagoda ESPECIALLY for a cartilage piercing

most of my lobe piercings i got done with a sewing needle in my aunt (20 year cartilage pain)'s dining room and even though lobes are an "easy" piercing they took ten times as long and were ten times as painful to do than my industrial, eyebrow, and septum that were done by piercing professionals in a parlor with surgical-grade equipment. my proper-done ones healed a lot easier too, and some of my lobes are crooked which make it kinda hard to put jewelry in and out

so FIND A GOOD PIERCER. A PROFESSIONAL. CERTIFIED.

a good place to start is with the Association of Professional Piercers, who are a health and safety nonprofit dedicated to sharing free information about piercings to make sure everything is safe. parlours and individual piercers can become members by ensuring they meet certain quality standards set by the APP, and they have a directory on their website that will let you look up any members in your area (though just because a piercer isn't in the APP doesn't mean they're not a safe and reliable piercer, it's a voluntary membership)

they also have a lot of information on their website about important safety information, procedures you should be able to see your piercer doing, and information about aftercare

so that's kind of a lot of info

tl;dr : click the APP link and do whatever they say, and know your body and how you react to things

hope that helps!!!