Saturday 23 September 2017

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


Wednesday 20 September 2017

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 



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