So you finally got your ears pierced—exciting, right? Now you might be wondering: Do I twist the earrings? How often do I clean them? What if they look a little red? Don’t stress. With a simple daily routine and the right products, you can keep your new piercings clean, comfortable, and healing on schedule.
Daily Routine at a Glance
| Time | What to Do | How to Do It |
| Morning | Clean your piercings |
1. Wash hands with soap and water. 2. Spray sterile saline front and back. 3. Wait ~30 sec. 4. Pat dry with clean paper towel/gauze. Don’t twist jewelry. |
| During day | Keep piercings clean & protected |
1. Avoid touching or playing with earrings. 2. Keep hair products, makeup, perfume off the area. 3. Watch for snags from masks, headphones, hair ties, scarves, hoodies, hats. 4. After sweaty workouts, rinse area and use saline. |
| Evening | Clean again & prep for sleep |
1. Wash hands. 2. Repeat saline spray on both sides. 3. Pat dry with fresh paper towel/gauze. 4. Avoid sleeping on fresh piercings. Use a travel or donut pillow so the ear sits in the opening. 5. Change pillowcase at least twice a week. |
| Every night | Quick red-flag check (10 seconds) |
Ask yourself: 1) Is pain getting worse, not better? 2) Is redness spreading beyond the piercing? 3) Is there thick yellow/green pus or fever? If yes, contact your piercer or doctor. |
Daily Piercing Care in 4 Easy Steps
Step 1: Clean Twice a Day
Clean your piercings once in the morning and once before bed. Start by washing your hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap. Spray a sterile saline solution directly onto both the front and back of your piercing. Let it sit for about 30 seconds to soften any crusties or discharge. Then use a clean paper towel or gauze to gently pat the area dry. Never use cloth towels, which can harbor bacteria and snag on your jewelry.
Step 2: Pick the Right Saline Solution
Look for wound wash saline solutions at your local pharmacy. The ingredient list should be simple: 0.9% sodium chloride and water. That's it. These solutions are specifically formulated for piercings and come in convenient spray bottles that make application easy. Avoid making your own salt water at home. You can't guarantee the correct concentration, and homemade solutions can introduce contaminants that interfere with healing.
Step 3: Don't Move Your Jewelry
Here's what many people get wrong: you shouldn't be moving, rotating, or twisting your jewelry during cleaning. Just spray the saline solution and let it do its work. The solution will naturally flow around the jewelry and clean the piercing channel without any help from you. Moving the jewelry can actually push bacteria into the healing tissue and cause irritation that sets back your progress.
Step 4: Skip These Products
Stay away from rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, tea tree oil, and antibiotic ointments. These products are too harsh for healing piercings and can actually slow down the healing process. Also skip the old-school advice about using antiseptic sprays or ear care solutions that came with piercing guns. Professional piercers don't recommend these products anymore because they can dry out and irritate your skin.
Things to Avoid While Your Ears Heal
Certain activities and products can mess with your healing, even if they seem harmless.
1. Skip Swimming for Now
Stay out of pools, hot tubs, lakes, rivers, and oceans for at least 4-6 weeks. These places are full of bacteria and chemicals that can infect your piercings.
Important: Pool chlorine doesn't clean piercings—it irritates them. If you absolutely have to swim, use waterproof bandages, but know they're not 100% reliable.
2. Keep Beauty Products Away
Hairspray, hair dye, makeup, lotions, and perfumes need to stay far from your piercings. Cover them with clean gauze when using these products.
Hair washing tip: Rinse really well to make sure no shampoo or conditioner is left sitting on your piercings.
3. Be Smart About Exercise
Light workouts are fine, but skip anything where your piercings might get bumped or pulled. Contact sports are off limits.
Post-workout must: Always clean your piercings with saline solution after exercising to get rid of sweat buildup.
4. Accessories That Can Cause Problems
Use over-ear headphones instead of earbuds. Stay away from tight headbands, hoodies with drawstrings near your face, and hats that squeeze your ears.
Watch out for: Hair ties and clips—they're sneaky and catch on piercings all the time.
5. Keep Your Hands Off
If there's one thing that causes piercing problems, it's touching your piercings with dirty hands. Your hands touch countless surfaces all day—your phone, doorknobs, keyboards, money. When you touch your piercings, you're transferring bacteria directly into an open wound.
- Stop twisting your earrings. You might have heard you need to rotate them daily. This advice is outdated and harmful. Twisting reopens the wound every day and pushes bacteria into the piercing channel.
- Only touch during cleaning. If your earring gets caught on something, wash your hands first before fixing it. Otherwise, hands off. Many people unconsciously play with new piercings—if you catch yourself doing this, keep your hands busy with a fidget toy. Every time you touch your piercings, you're adding days to your healing time.
How to Sleep Without Hurting Your Piercings
Sleep is when your body does most of its healing, but sleeping on new piercings can cause serious problems.
- Sleep on the Right Side: One ear pierced? Sleep on the opposite side. Both ears pierced? You'll need to sleep on your back until they heal. Pressure on healing piercings can cause irritation bumps and even permanent damage to the piercing angle.
- Try the Travel Pillow Trick: Use a travel neck pillow (the U-shaped kind) as your regular pillow. Position your ear in the hole so there's no pressure on your piercing. This works great if you can't sleep on your back. You can also use a donut-shaped pillow or roll up a towel to create the same effect.
- Get Flat Back Jewelry: Flat back jewelry sits flush against your ear and won't dig into your head while you sleep. It also doesn't get caught on hair or clothing. If your piercer used butterfly backs, ask about switching to flat backs once your swelling goes down.
- Keep Your Pillowcase Clean: Change your pillowcase at least twice a week. Even better, lay a clean t-shirt over your pillow each night and flip it to the other side halfway through the week. This keeps bacteria away from your piercings while you sleep.
Piercing Aftercare Check: Normal Healing vs. Infection Signs
Normal Healing Signs
Redness, tenderness, and minor swelling are normal for the first two weeks. You'll also see some clear or slightly yellow crusties around your jewelry. This is lymph fluid, not pus, and it's totally normal. Your piercings might feel warm and occasionally itchy.
Quick Fixes for Swelling
Use a cold compress wrapped in a clean paper towel for a few minutes. Take ibuprofen if needed, but not on an empty stomach. Most swelling goes down within the first week.
When to Get Help
See your piercer or doctor if you have:
- Severe pain that's getting worse
- Hot red skin spreading beyond the piercing
- Thick yellow or green pus
- Fever
- Jewelry embedding into your skin
These need professional attention right away. Young piercers may experience more complications due to increased touching and less careful aftercare practices.
Handling Irritation Bumps
Small bumps are common and usually clear up when you:
- Stop sleeping on your piercings
- Avoid snagging your jewelry
- Don't over-clean (twice daily is enough)
If bumps last more than two weeks, check with your piercer.
When to Switch to a Shorter Earring Post
Your piercer starts you off with longer posts—usually 8mm for lobes—to give your ears room to swell during the first few weeks. You'll know it's time to downsize when the swelling is completely gone and you can see a clear gap between your ear and the jewelry backing. Most lobe piercings are ready for downsizing around 4-8 weeks after piercing. You might also notice your earrings catching on things more often because of that extra length. Cartilage piercings take longer—usually 8-12 weeks or more.
Don't rush the downsizing process. Going shorter too early can cause irritation and problems because the tissue isn't ready yet. Always have your piercer handle the downsizing, especially your first jewelry change. They have the proper tools and know-how to switch your jewelry without damaging the healing tissue. Trying to do it yourself can hurt your piercings and add weeks to your healing time.
FAQ
Q1: Do I need to rotate my earrings every day while they heal?
No, you should never rotate your earrings during the healing process. This outdated advice actually causes more harm than good by introducing bacteria into the piercing channel and disrupting the healing tissue. Modern piercing care emphasizes leaving your jewelry completely still except during cleaning.
Q2: What's the best way to clean new piercings?
Clean your piercings twice daily with sterile saline wound wash. Spray both sides of your piercing, let it sit for 30 seconds, then pat dry with clean paper towels. Don't use cotton balls, Q-tips, homemade salt water, or harsh products like alcohol or hydrogen peroxide.
Q3: How can I tell if my piercing is infected?
True infections are less common than people think. Warning signs include severe increasing pain, hot red skin spreading from the piercing site, thick yellow-green pus, fever, and swollen lymph nodes. Minor redness, tenderness, and clear discharge are normal parts of healing. When in doubt, consult your piercer or doctor.
Q4: Is it safe to shower and swim with new piercings?
Showering is fine—just keep your piercings clean and dry them afterward. Swimming in pools, hot tubs, lakes, or oceans should be avoided for at least 4-6 weeks because these water sources contain bacteria and irritants that can infect healing piercings.
Q5: When should I switch to a shorter earring post?
Most lobe piercings are ready for downsizing around 4-8 weeks after piercing, once swelling has completely subsided. Signs you're ready include visible extra post length and no tenderness when gently pressing on the area. Always have your piercer handle the first jewelry change.
Q6: Does the metal type matter for healing piercings?
Absolutely. Stick with implant-grade materials like solid 14k or 18k gold, titanium, or niobium during healing. These metals are biocompatible and won't cause reactions. Avoid mystery metals, plated jewelry, and fashion earrings until your piercings are fully healed.
Q7: What does "internally threaded" mean and why does it matter?
Internally threaded jewelry has threads on the inside of the post, so the decorative end screws in smoothly. This is better than externally threaded jewelry (where threads are on the post itself) because there are no rough edges to scratch your piercing channel during insertion or removal.
Q8: How long does it take for ear piercings to fully heal?
Lobe piercings typically take 3-6 months to fully heal, though you can carefully change jewelry after 8-12 weeks. Cartilage piercings take much longer—usually 6-12 months or even up to a year. Just because a piercing looks healed doesn't mean it's fully healed internally, so be patient with the process.
Time to Heal—You're All Set!
Taking care of new piercings doesn't have to be complicated. Stick to simple saline cleaning twice a day, keep your hands off your jewelry, protect your piercings while you sleep, and watch for signs of problems. Most healing issues come from doing too much rather than too little, so resist the urge to over-clean or constantly check on your piercings. Give them time, stick to the basics, and you'll have beautiful, healthy piercings that last a lifetime.
