With the popularity of body piercings at an all-time high, there are tons of places where you can buy new body jewelry. Dozens of online retailers, body jewelry stores, and more have popped up over the years making shopping for jewelry easier than ever.
However, buying jewelry for your body piercing isn’t quite the same as purchasing other types of jewelry. Since piercing jewelry goes through the body, you need to pay attention to the size, style, and material of the jewelry to ensure the safety of your piercing. This can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’ve never shopped for body jewelry before.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might think. Here’s a quick guide to buying body jewelry and where you can shop for safe, beautiful body jewelry pieces.
Head to your piercer
Piercing studios sell body jewelry, and they usually have a wide variety of jewelry options to choose from. If your piercer is reputable, their studio should be a great place to start when looking for a new piece of jewelry.
The great thing about piercers is that they also have the expertise to tell you if the jewelry piece that you want is appropriate for your piercing. Even if your piercing is fully healed, if your jewelry is too small or doesn’t fit correctly, it can push against the piercing holes and cause trauma. It’s essential, therefore, that you continue to choose the right jewelry for the entire life of your piercing.
Your piercer should have a good selection of body jewelry, and they’ll be able to help you with sizing and safely changing the jewelry.
When you head to your piercer, ask them the measurements of your piercing and the type of jewelry that you can wear (if you don’t have that information handy already). This way, when you purchase body jewelry on your own, you can know the exact measurements that you’ll need.
Most body jewelry comes in varying gauges (the thickness of the bar that goes through your piercing) and lengths. You need to be aware of the optimal sizes for your jewelry so that it fits comfortably and safely. A piercer is the best one to give you those measurements.
A note on styles and sizes
There’s a common misperception that, once your piercing has healed, you can wear whatever you want in it.
The truth is that the wrong shape and size of the jewelry can cause issues in your piercing. Before you go shopping for body jewelry, make sure that you know which styles and sizes your piercing can accept.
Head to a body jewelry store or shop online
The key to shopping at a body jewelry store, whether it’s brick and mortar or online, is to do your research beforehand.
There are quite a few body jewelry stores out there, but not all of them use quality materials. Low quality materials can cause irritation even in piercings that have been healed for years. The best thing that you can do for your piercing is to ensure that you purchase body jewelry that will fit comfortably in your piercing without causing irritation or other issues.
The jewelry that you put in your piercing should be well made with materials that are safe for your body.
How to check the materials
The materials used in your body jewelry should adhere to the Association of Professional Piercers’ jewelry standards.
Briefly, this document says that body jewelry should
- Be made from materials suitable for the body, like titanium that is ASTM F67 compliant, solid 14k gold, and lead- and nickel-free materials.
- Have internal threading (which means that the threading on any jewelry piece appears on the inside of the bar rather than the outside).
- Be free from nicks, scratches, and anything that could harm the piercing.
- Have a consistent polish on any area that comes in contact with the skin.
Some of these things, like internal threading, are easy to see on your own, but you might have to do some research when it comes to the materials used. Before buying body jewelry from a retailer, be sure to do your due diligence, just like you would when trying to find a new piercer.
Carefully read the reviews and do your research
Reviews are so important to gauge the experience that you’re about to have with a retailer.
When you read the reviews with jewelry quality in mind, pay attention to things like jewelry comfort, how long the jewelry lasts, and whether the piece was what the reviewer was expecting.
As with everything regarding your piercing, be sure to do your research before purchasing body jewelry from a retailer.
If you see a few reviews that talk about needing to send broken jewelry back, even if it eventually got replaced, this could be a sign that the company produces ill-made products, and you might want to stay away. Be sure to dig deeply; some companies will hire fake reviewers to bump up their rating, and you need to find the genuine responses.
Additionally, if the store sells a lot of plastic and gimmicky items, it could be a sign that their jewelry isn’t of the highest quality. You might think that a glow-in-the-dark tongue ring will be perfect for Halloween, but your body deserves better.
Be willing to invest a little bit
From the piercing itself to the jewelry that you choose to wear, you should be willing to spend a little money on your new look.
While you don’t have to set aside hundreds of dollars, you should stay away from prices that seem too good to be true. Cheap body jewelry pieces are made from cheap materials, and they could cause some irritation and other issues in your body piercing.
Just be mindful. And, if you’re spending $5 on a navel ring online, know that you’re going to get what you paid for (and maybe some skin irritation on top of that).
Research is key when picking out new body jewelry. Be aware that materials are important and you shouldn’t just put any type of jewelry in your piercing. Make sure that you’re choosing the correct styles and sizes for your piercing, and shop at reputable stores rather than the cheap ones. As long as you pay attention and take some time, you shouldn’t have a problem on your body jewelry shopping spree.
