I like the look of larger gauge piercings, and 6 months ago decided to begin the process of stretching. After much reading, chatting with piercers, friends, and fellow BMErs, I decided to start with the Nail Polish Method followed by the Taper Method on my 14 gauge nipple piercings. I'd originally wanted them pierced at a larger gauge, but jewellery availability had (or lack thereof) had made me change my mind at the time. I'd regretted that ever since.
At A Glance Author Leather_Player Contact Leather_Player@bme.anon IAM Leather_Player When Six months ago Artist Me & Scott Studio At Home & then Totally Pierced Location Darlinghurst My buddy and fellow self-piercing aficionado Richgoth supplied me with an extra set of bars he'd made to get me started. Richgoth kindly gave them to me one afternoon when I went to visit him, and got me so enthused about the process (showing me some of his own stretched piercings) that I decided to start that day.
On the way back from Richgoth's place, I went to the big cosmetics section of a city department store and went hunting for the least allergenic clear nail polish available. A couple of the sales assistants there looked rather bemused at my request, which was probably not helped by the fact I was wearing lots of piercings, wasn't shaven, no make up or polish, combat boots, khaki shorts & ratty black t-shirt. Still, I remained good mannered, and spent nearly $30 on this special nail polish for scent sensitive people. They had two brands that had a product for that need, and I basically just picked the one with less packaging, because the price and other things were roughly the same as far as I could tell.
That evening I applied three layers of polish to each of the new bars. It was simply a matter of putting on an even layer of nail polish while holding the bar by one tip. Once the layer was slightly hard, I put it down on grease proof paper for half an hour under a fan. I did this to each bar three times, then let them both dry for 24 to 48 hours (depending on my schedule and level of patience : - ).
Once the newly painted bars were dried, it was no problem putting them in after removing my existing bars. It did not feel like a stretch at all. Once the original bars were out, I cleaned them, and applied 6 layers of nail polish in the way described above - that took up some time on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I was doing a bit of reading. I left the bars with 3 layers of nail polish in my nipples for a month, to make sure there was no slight stretching to heal. Noticing no particular discomfort with the 3 layers, I put in the bars with 6 layers to replace them. I wiped down the 3 layer bars with antiseptic, then added another 6 layers to take it to 9 layers (3 more than the 6 nail polish layers I now had in).
The 6 layer bars seemed to cause my nipples some grief, as I got some pretty weepy and sore nipples for a while. Salt water soaks eventually eased that, but I decided to leave in the 6 layers for 2 months to give my piercings a chance to settle down. Salt water soaks involve two heaped teaspoons of sea salt in a small coffee cup of luke-warm water. I also got an infection in my right piercing (for the first time ever) and used Betadine Cream (applied 4 times a day) to eliminate that. After that (and more peaceful rest for my nipples) I proceeded at monthly intervals to 12 layers of polish.
Getting a bit over the Nail Polish Method, I decided to move to the Taper Method, which would be quicker. So I ambled down the road to Totally Pierced, and chatted to Scott about my piercings. After taking them out we decided that it would be easy enough to stretch them to 10 gauge. He was right, as the 10 gauge taper did not cause any real pain, and slipping the new bars in afterwards was no difficulty.
I was very pleased to see that even though this was not an actual piercing, Scott wore gloves, used single use equipment, and had all the jewellery items autoclaved. His studio keeps to the NSW Health Department Skin Penetration Guidelines, and I noticed they had a copy there which another customer was looking at. So it seems they educate their customers too.
My nipples are now happily at 10 gauge, and I plan on giving them a rest for a while. If my right piercing doesn't grow out or migrate (it's looking odd lately), I think I would eventually like to take them to approx 6 gauge. After that, I might start on stretching my other piercings, who knows ...