Make sure you leave the jewelry in for about 6 to 8 weeks.
- Avoid touching or twisting the jewelry. It needs time and rest to recover. If you have to touch it for some reason, make sure your hands are clean by washing them with an antibacterial soap.
- Rinse the area daily with clean running water, during showering for example.
- Pat the area dry with paper towels
- Do not wear band-aids over the piercing.
- Be patient. Give it at least 6 weeks time to heal before you want to go and stretch to a bigger size. And you’d rather want a professional to stretch your piercings to avoid swelling, pus, pain, thinning tissue, scarring, blowouts or other mishaps.
- After the healing of an earlobe piercing of size 00g and bigger, I recommend to take the jewelry out at night every once in a while to promote thickening and strengthening of the skin and a better blood circulation so your skin will stay healthy. If you find it difficult to put your jewelry back in in the morning (do not push or pull harder!) you might want to put a smaller size in and the normal size after about 20 minutes. You can use a water based perfumfree lubricant of jojoba oil or olive oil if you have none of the above at your disposal.
Search and read more on this website about safe stretching, jewelry materials, different piercing stretching methods…
A stretch is actually scar tissue, like any piercing.
But it has a larger surface area, no matter how small the stretch. If you commonly use organics ( = natural materials such as wood, horn, bone , etc. ) as jewelry for your stretch you will not have so many problems with sebum secretions (compared with stone and metals, with more sebum is released which then the piece can go accumulate) . But it is important to clean your stretched skin at least once a month to promote healthy stretched piercings. Of course you always your hands with an antibacterial soap before doing this, then you take the jewelry out. Wash your skin with saline. Rinse and dry gently with soft kitchen paper or a clean towel . After this, it is good for the skin to massage it with a little Jojoba oil. This promotes the healing and elasticity of the skin. A little bit of ointment is also good, but nothing with perfume in it though. A healthy stretch should be feeling soft to the touch and not painful what- so-ever , the skin color should be light pink to natural skin tone . You can best clean organic jewelry by occasionally wiping it with a soft cloth with a little Jojoba to keep it nice, shiny and clean. For other jewelry you can wash them with an antibacterial soap generally and rinse them and dry them with a soft cloth.
See also the article on stretching your piercings , how to care for and what to do and what not to do .