Gauges??

[Aestai]

I gauged my ears yesterday for the first time with size 14 tapers. Now how do I take care of them? Anything from cleaning, to sizing up, to when I can take them out would be amazing to know! Thanks

[thefirstlady]

Some tips starting off:

As far as stretching your ears go, never leave tapers in and don't use acrylic or wood plugs on unhealed ears. They're porous and harbor bacteria. Always use stainless steel or glass right away after stretching. Keep your ears clean too. It will keep them healthy. Oh and once you get into bigger sizes, starting around 6g from what I remember, you start getting the dead skin cells and smell that comes from them. It's normal, just clean your ears daily/every other day and it'll help with that!

Always wait at least 4 weeks before stretching up. When you get into bigger sizes like 00g and up wait longer. If you stretch up too fast you will get blowouts or tearing. Tearing is not a fun experience and blowouts usually will not go away. Also, when you get into bigger sizes like around 1/2" (if you're going that big eventually), Never use tapers. If you're going to go that big, you want to use bondage tape to wrap around the plug to gradually go bigger to prevent tearing and blowouts. I've been stretching my ears for almost 10 years and I'm currently at 5/8". If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

[wonderbread]

Never stretch too big at one time. When sizing up go from a 14 to a 12 to a 10 to a 8 and so forth. Like Morgan said when doing it try not to keep tapers in. I have and it wasn't bad or painful for me but it is advised against. I only have a taper in right now on one ear because I can't find my gauge. I would say clean your ears and gauges everyday. Don't just clean your ear remember to clean your gauge. The smell does come once you get to about a 6 gauge. I usually just clean it in the shower and if I don't I take some proxide on a cotton ball and clean it.

If you have big enough gauges and you are wearing the correct type of gauge you can keep them in all the time and just take them out to clean them.

[Aestai]

okay, thanks n why shouldn't i keep tapers in??

[wonderbread]

Well they can very easily fall out, they also can be heavy on your ears and weigh your ear down and screw up the hole. It just makes the angle of your hole awkward. Get into your plug as soon as possible.

[thefirstlady]

It's not recommended to leave the tapers in because they're generally acrylic and acrylics harbor bacteria. Which can lead to infection which isn't good. Also, tapers can irritate the ears because they're usually awkward and get bumped (mostly talking about the more common straight taper) a lot which isn't good for freshly stretched ears. If you are going to leave tapers in, do it only with curved or spiral metal tapers.

[Madeleine.Claire]

Listen to the advice about blow outs and tearing.

I had a friend who had huge gauges and one blew out, and yeah they do smell, all the time actually. Which probably means he needs to clean them more but oh well!

Have fun with them(: haha.