What Is Ear Stretching aka Gauges? | Piercings

Watch more Learn about Piercings videos:
Learn all about ear stretching, aka gauges, from professional piercer Owen Beane in this Howcast video.
Hello, I'm Owen Beane, I work at Chameleon Tattoo in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Chameleonbodyarts.com is the website. Chameleon Tattoo's been here more than 10 years, but ten years as such with tattooing, over the last 14 years I've been doing body piercing here in Cambridge and I'll be talking to you about piercings today. Shat you need to know about ear stretching is that patience is very very important. You don't really want to skip uh, sizes on the gauge system, and you really want to wait the right amount of time in between stretches. Um, the standard amount of time in between a stretch is anywhere in between 3 to 6 weeks, um and you don't really want to skip gauges on the way down. So the gauge system is set up so that as long as you follow, um, the amount of time in between, and you go one gauge at a time, you're going to be able to avoid tearing tissue and damaging tissue, and that's the goal. Um, ear stretching is just that. It's just stretching, you don't ever want to break skin. So if you're ever stretching your ear, and you're seeing bleeding, um, that's not going well. You know, and, um, have help. Have professional help when you get started because, that way you know what a safe stretching feels like,um, and then in the future if you are stretching on your own you know what it's supposed to feel like. And yeah, stretching with implements you find around the house like chopsticks and paintbrushes and stuff like that is ill-advised. You really want to have a professional do it with a taper is what its called, it's a stretching tool.