Body Piercing By Jonathon Bremer

Hi there! As far as I know, glass tapers are not a thing being manufactured by any of the wonderful companies we work with. 

It’s also good to remember that tapers are simply a tool to help us guide appropriate jewelry into a piercing, they are not meant to be worn as jewelry themselves. If you’ve been having difficulties stretching, and you’ve been picking up plastic or metal tapers from mall kiosks, or costume-based stores like Hot Topic or Spencer’s, then most likely this is where most of your troubles are stemming from. We do our best to remind our clients that the tapers and jewelry found at places like those are “costume quality” and only meant for short-term use, if even that.

For healthy stretching we remind our clients it really comes down to patience and high quality jewelry. It is a common misconception these days that stretching earlobes should hurt, and this is something we hear every day, when really it shouldn’t. Yes, some stretches may be tight or even a little bit achy afterward, but there should never be any sharp pain or bleeding. When people experience that sharp pain or bleeding, it’s a pretty good sign that they’ve tried to stretched too quickly, and instead of evenly stretching around the circumference of the lobe they cause rips or tears in one or more spots. We advise our clients to wait AT LEAST 6-8 weeks in between stretches, though waiting even longer is going to work better for some folks’ tissue. 

As for jewelry, you want to seek out implant-grade, single-flare jewelry. So no plastics, no “surgical” steel, nothing with a paint or coating on it, and no organic materials like horn, wood, or bone. One of our favorite materials to stretch with is borosilicate glass; it’s relatively low cost, biocompatible, non-porous, and comes in a very wide range of colors and styles. We also really like implant-grade steel and titanium eyelets, though these pieces are generally priced a bit higher than glass. Most, if not all, reputable piercing studios will offer the service of stretching for a small fee plus the cost of jewelry. This is a very popular service with our clients, as they can visit us every few months at one size and leave wearing the next. Another reason this service is popular is because we’re very good about communicating with our clients. During their visit we’ll be able to do a little check up on their lobes and their progress, we’ll be able to guide them through picking out appropriate, comfortable, attractive jewelry, and they know that during the stretch we will never force anything. A big issue we see with people coming in with complaints about how painful and difficult stretching their lobes has been, is that they ignore the signs their body has been giving. We hear a lot of “I don’t care if it hurts” and we remind them that they really should care, as that is their body’s way of letting them know that something is wrong.