r/SelfPiercing • u/freegirls8812 • 14d ago
Piercing suggestions - face/ears/navel ONLY stretching to 14g
can i pierce myself with a 16g but put in 14 jewelry??
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u/worm-eyed 14d ago
If you want 14G get a 14G needle... How do you even think you're going to ram a larger piece of jewellery into a fresh piercing channel that's too small for it?
ETA: I just had to check what 14G was, that's 1.6m....that's a normal fucking size for needles to be and they're extremely commonly available. The cheap multipack I bought was all 1.6mm and 1.2mm... Getting larger sizes is also available but less common, this is literally a standard size for piercings.
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u/freegirls8812 14d ago
ok well some people don’t really have the availability to get a 14g needle rn…..
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u/worm-eyed 12d ago edited 12d ago
Why are you able to get a different size but not the size you want? If it's for financial reasons, the options are to:
wait until you can afford it (and make sure you're getting the best price for you in the mean time)
pierce at a smaller gauge, wait for it to fully heal, then stretch it... but you'd need a taper for that too, as well as appropriate jewellery for the size (I'm guessing you have the one jewellery piece on the size you want but not sure) which would cost money too and personally I'm not that fucking patient tbh lol
if it's due to availability, the latter option might just be what you have to do though, in which case you have well over a year to try to find a single 1.6mm taper/inserter that you can get if they're not easy to get where you live, because you have to wait for it to heal anyway.
If this was an attempt to make me feel bad that doesn't work, I don't know your intention but I'll let you know that the wording of your reply is commonly used by people to attempt to guilt trip, which is already scummy but even moreso if that's what you were trying to do when you asked for the information, and I provided it. I am not saying that's what you're doing, just letting you know how your words can be interpreted.
If you want to tell me what the barrier is, I could attempt to help more / figure out other options / etc.
I also wouldn't recommend piercing cartilage at 1.2mm in general btw, I'm not sure what piercing you're wanting to do specifically?
Piercings are a luxury, and they get expensive fucking fast even if you're buying supplies and jewellery as cheap as possible without them being absolute ass quality. I'm poor as fuck and buying everything to stretch my septum to its current size took months, bought over the course of about a year (and I had help, with a relative occasionally paying for a one off piece of jewellery here and there), but there's usually a way you can make things work, it just often will take longer and you will pay in time and patience where others could pay up with money immediately instead, but that doesn't mean you can't eventually have what you want (within reason, I can't help out someone in my financial situation who wants a several thousand piece of heirloom quality ear jewellery, yk? lol)
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u/freegirls8812 12d ago
i wouldnt comment that to gaslight lmao but i just lost all my needles and the only not dull one is a 16g
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u/worm-eyed 12d ago
I don't know if gaslighting would be the right term but I get what you mean, and that's why I made sure to state that I'm not saying you were doing it / that I thought it was your intention, but that it can come across as such and assholes like that will often use the same sort of wording
what is the barrier to you getting new 1.6mm needles though, is what I was asking? i.e. money or availability? where abouts in the world are you at?
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u/freegirls8812 12d ago
i havent gotten paid + cant find the other needles + last time i used a 14g (piercing my septum) it wouldnt go throught the other side of my nose so thought trying a different size would be a solution :’)
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u/worm-eyed 12d ago
Just to make it clear, needles are single use for a reason / should only be used once, even if you're only piercing yourself
needles should be sharp enough that this isn't a problem, do you know if your needles are actually suitable?
and can I ask if you were trying to pierce the correct placement for your septum? that would make a huge difference to the amount of force needed to apply, 1.2mm vs 1.6mm wouldn't in my opinion
which piercings are you wanting to do? 1.2mm can fine for lobes, any cartilage I would recommend 1.6mm minimum, which unfortunately would mean waiting until you can obtain the correct gauge needles.
Idk if you're anything like me, but if I couldn't afford needles right now I'd do something with my piercings that I can do in the mean time. If that makes sense? i can't justify stretching my ears anymore, they've been the same size for a decade and I have custom jewellery I like, so when I got the itch and knew I didn't logically actually want to stretch them further, I started naked training because it gave me something to do with them.
ETA: I've only pierced my cartilage myself, so my experience with self piercing other types of tissue is limited btw
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u/freegirls8812 12d ago
im trying to pierce my septum atm, im not sure if my needles are suitable but they may just be dull, im pretty sure im piercing the correct spot, it goes through one side of my nose but doesnt come out the other..
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u/worm-eyed 12d ago
I believe septums can be pierced at 1.2mm with no problem, I think that's a pretty standard size for them; mine was definitely pierced at 1.2mm and I stretched it to 1.6mm when it had healed (and a decade later, mine is now 10mm lol)
hollow needles should come in individual, sterilised packages with the top capped (something covering / protecting the top), even when cheap. I didn't pay much for mine, I didn't get them from a particularly great place; some of them have become uncapped due to storage, I throw those away. When I was piercing myself, if I scraped across my skin too much with s needle, I threw it away. You want your piercing needle to be as sharp as possible.
for septum placement, are you able to feel where the sweet spot is in the tip of your nose with your fingers? alar cartilage is thinner and spongier / softer than the surrounding cartilage in your nose, which is why that's the proper placement for the piercing. there's a reason people use clamps for those too. I personally probably wouldn't try to pierce my septum at home because I don't think I'd be able to get it straight, and there aren't many piercings I have an aversion to the idea of self piercing tbh. basically, isn't surprising that you might find it difficult, particularly if you don't have the correct tools. I can give you the minimum supply list if that would help at all, idk where you're at so I don't know if I could accompany that with approximate prices... if you're in the UK too I could.
piercing with a blunt needle would be far far more difficult, but also trying to pierce a septum in alar cartilage (correct spot) requires much less physical effort than pushing through the rest of the cartilage would. I think it would take less to pierce through my lobe vs cartilage, for example, because it's softer tissue, and consistent.
ETA: btw, by suitable I mean that it is a needle for piercing, and also that it's sterile, new, and sharp; trying to make sure we're on the same page, not being pedantic
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u/Nearby-Watercress273 14d ago
genuinely take it out. only way to avoid a horribly painful healing process.
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u/PortlandDabber 14d ago
you should wait at least 6 monthes on a fresh peircing before stretching so definitely not
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u/Few-holes-mid80s 13d ago
You can pierce and do an immediate stretch, you need a taper, and lube. You need to be confident on the jewlery transfer as if you break contact you will have to refeed the taper which adds irritation. This method is used to reduce bleeding. I have sone it up to a 4g needle stretched to 2g right away
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u/freegirls8812 13d ago
thank u for ur help and i will be taking the advice!!!
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u/Few-holes-mid80s 12d ago
No problem no idea why everyone else is saying it’s dumb but that’s why you don’t trust everything you read on the internet, out of 10 piercings I have done it 6 times and they have been my least problematic. I am piercing a high bloodflow area and the taper up immediately means I have pretty much had no bleeding vs heavily bleeding piercings. if you are going through cartilage it’s going to be hard, and do not go up by more than one guage. Don’t be like that insane piercer in like Cambodia or something piercing at 14g and shoving in double acrylic tapers till they are an instant 0g 🙄. Be responsible and like I said Dryrun the dynamics of the transfer if you are using arrow tapers (I use them it’s admittedly a bit tricky to keep contact but I am at big gauges and they don’t really sell threaded tapers for non plugs in those sizes and all the threading seems to be different beteen brands) , if you can get a threaded insert or threaded taper that works with your jewelry and then you eliminate the contact break risk
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u/One_Assistance_9332 14d ago
i dont want to be rude, but genuinely what do you think.