How I Look After My Stretched Ears

I love my stretched ears. They are, after my tattoos at least, my favorite modification I have on my body. I've been stretching my ears for 2 years, and they're currently at 14mm. That's not huge, I grant you, but on my tiny ears, it's pretty sizable. Anyways, I digress. Today I'm going to talk to you about what I do to look after my stretched ears. 





Cleaning:

I clean my ears in the shower, like most people with stretched ears. I slip out my plugs, use a little bit of soap (or shower gel, or antibacterial wash) and clean the entire lobe, get it all sudsy, then rinse with lovely warm water. Then I clean my plugs. 


Generally just running them under the shower head does the job, but from time to time I give them a good wipe over with surgical spirits to make sure they're totally germ-free. Then I pop my plugs back in. All clean. 

Moisturizing: 

Anyone with stretched ears will tell you, moisturizing is a key part of the maintenance of stretched ears. I use Vitamin E in a few forms.   

After showering and whenever I feel it's necessary, I use Kelkin Vitamin E Cream. Now I use this on my face but any time I use any creams, I take them from the pot with cotton wool buds, so I don't contaminate the pot with my icky finger germs! I pop a little on my lobes after showering or if I'm going out in the cold for the day to keep my ears looking lovely. I even bring a mini tub of Vitamin E cream and some cotton buds in my handbag in case I might need to pop a little cream on them during the day. 

Massaging:

 A couple of times per week I burst a Sona Vitamin E capsule and rub the oil on my lobes before bedtime. Vitamin E encourages new growth and healthy skin, a must for anyone with stretched ears! 

If you've little lobes like me, massaging them helps to promote blood-flow and new cell growth. When I'm moisturizing my ears, I massage the lobes for a minute or two to stimulate the flow of blood to them. This helps to thicken them up over time which is great if you want to stretch your ears to bigger sizes.




Other Stuff: 

If it's cold, keep your ears warm. Don't wear steel, wear wood or glass. Wear a hat that covers your ears if you can! Some people I've seen on YouTube with bigger stretched lobes are able to wrap them around their ears near their face, which allows their body heat to keep their lobes warm - while I can't do that, I can say it's a good idea for those who can! 

Wear nice stuff in your holes. I favor stone, almost exclusively, but I also really like to wear glass too. Glass can be made into spirals and fancy shapes, where stone cannot, so it's nice to have some fancy glass plugs for special wear. I also really like the satisfying weight that you can feel with stone and glass.

So there you have it, how I look after my stretched ears. Hopefully you found this useful if you are new to stretched ear care and if you're more seasoned than I am, please do let me know your tips!! 

Amy

xo

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My 12mm and 14mm Plug Collection

In my last post, I waxed lyrical about how I look after my stretched ears, and today I'm here to show you what beautiful things I wear in them. I try to buy as much as I can in my local piercing shops, but as you can see, I am a big fan of the online store Crazy Factory. This post isn't sponsored, I just really really like Crazy Factory, and I wanted to share my collection. I've been waiting for my most recent order from Crazy Factory to arrive so I could write this post, actually.

I'm going to show you my 12mm and 14mm collections because I'm proud of both collections as they stand. I am presently wearing 14mm jewelry and all my 14mm plugs are stone except for one pair of stainless steel tunnels which aren't pictured because they look exactly like the 12mm ones - just bigger!

NOTE: For all the gauge size users reading this, 12mm is 1/2" and 14mm is 9/16".

12mm

Stainless Steel Tunnels: Wildcat Ink North 

Flowery Acrylic Tunnels: Wildcat Ink South 

Clear Silicone Tunnels: Crazy Factory 

Red and Green Foil Finish Acrylic Plugs: Crazy Factory 

Blue Stone Plugs: Crazy Factory 

Glass Plugs: Crazy Factory 

Opalite Plugs: Wildcat Ink North 

14mm

Opalite Tunnels: Wildacat Ink North

Sparkly Black Stone Plugs: Crazy Factory

Rose Quartz Plugs: Crazy Factory

Glow In The Dark Glass Plugs: Crazy Factory

Tigers Eye Single Flare Plug: Crazy Factory

BONUS!!! Handmade Pyrite Dangles/Hangers

I made these Pyrite hangers for wearing with fancier outfits, and I'm in love!! They've a T-bar closure for ease and a little extra detail.

So there you have it! My plug and tunnel collection in all its glory! I hope you enjoyed this post, if you did I would love to hear which pair or pairs you thought were the prettiest in the comment section! 

<3 

Amy 

xo 

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None of the plugs in this post were gifted, provided for review or anything else. I parted with a lot of cash for these! 

Conch Piercing; 1 Year On

Last year, on the 17th of December, I believe, I went to Dublin for my Christmas shopping and came home with the shopping and a fresh piercing. 

I got my Conch pierced. I won't beat around the bush, the piercing hurt being done, I yelped a bit when the needle went through. It is the thickest part of your ear so I should have expected it. When I came home, I cleaned it and it was throbbing but it wasn't painful any-more. My ear was red and angry for a few days but nothing I wasn't expecting, after all, I had just paid a lovely lady to push a 1.6mm tri-bevel hollow needle through my ear. It was mad at me. I understand!  It was agony to sleep on for 3 months or more, so I learned to sleep on my left side, which I still do even though my piercing is fully healed and doesn't hurt at all as I type this. 

A few months on (April) and I was growing weary of the little stainless steel ball in the hollow of my ear so I took myself off to Wildcat and picked up a black acrylic ball with white stars on it. I just wanted to have a nice top ball and the piercer said it wouldn't impede healing so I was happy as a clam. It hurt to sleep on for a bit but it was nowhere near as uncomfortable as the tiny ball was.

In July, I got my Arrow barbell and I adored it. I maintain my status as an archer, no matter what, I will go down swinging!! What better for an archer with an arrow tattoo to have a tiny silver arrow in her ear?! It was fabulous, until I wanted to change it. It wouldn't unscrew. For a few weeks it didn't bother me, but I knew something was up so once again, I took myself back to Wildcat to have them see what was up. Basically, I wound up having to have the whole thing pulled from my ear in two different directions and it SUCKED ASS SO HARD!!! I sobbed like a child, but the piercer was so cool she didn't judge at all, in fact she was amazing!! Back to a stainless steel barbell I went, replacement bar in tow in case I wanted to put the arrow back in a few weeks later. I didn't. I'll stick to my tattoo thanks!

Last month, I went to Baz Black (based in Dundalk), who would technically be my Boyfriends local piercing place, if Chris was pierced. I got Baz to switch out the bar, replacing it with a blue adonized Captive Bead Ring at 12mm diameter and 1.6mm in gauge. Having him change to the hoop - no bother at all, not a flinch or a twinge within a 10ft radius. Sleeping on it sucked for a fortnight and to be honest I thought about taking myself back up to Dundalk and getting Baz to swap it back again but I persevered and now it's perfect. The site of the piercing needed time to adjust to the curve, and now its absolutely perfect and it looks so bad-ass! 


Healing was a bit of a pain at times... It's had a pretty angry keloid on the back of my ear, which I drew out with Disprin pastes, and now its absolutely perfect, and healed really well after all the issues with the keloid. I cleaned it twice daily for 3 months, once a day for 3 months, and then every other day for 3 months, as well as applying tea tree oil with a cotton wool bud twice a week for the entire duration. I try not to touch it but the ring especially is easy to fiddle with. I still occasionally apply tea tree oil to the piercing and spray the whole thing with anti-bacterial spray by Easy Piercing just to be kind to it.

So 12 months on, and what's the verdict?

I wouldn't get the other Conch pierced, and probably will never venture into cartilage land whatsoever, but I would not change this conch ring for the world. I love it just as much as my tattoos, sometimes more. I'm all about tattoos, piercings are a longer more intricate commitment in terms of healing. You really have to be on the ball when you heal a piercing, there is a lot of scope for infections and rejection. I think I've learned enough about tattoos to know I'm happier healing fresh ink than a piercing. 

As cheezy as this is, I wanna say a big thank you to anyone who gave me advice or helped in any way when I was healing this bad boy! Sorcha at Wildcat Ink in Stephens Green, my lovely piercer, Dani in Dublin Ink for telling me about Disprin Pastes, Baz at Baz Black Piercing Dundalk for swapping out the bar for the CBR and various pierced friends for being dead sound when I had questions! 

Hope this post was helpful, 

Amy

xx

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