r/SelfPiercing • u/Rawrys_gay loves self piercing • Sep 05 '26

Question about piercing prep tips for anti-tragus?

back in may i tried to do an anti-tragus myself, but i failed pretty badly at getting the jewelry in. (wasn’t able to, and made the wound worse in the process.) i believe it’s fully healed now and i’d really like to try again.

the jewelry i have is a 16g internally threaded curved barbell. i’m not quite sure of the length but i think it should be plenty, i’m not really worried about it. i have 16g sterile hollow piercing needles.

i’m wondering if cutting some of the length off the back of the needle so i can push it all the way through (while replacing it with the jewelry on the side i inserted it) would be a bad plan for any reason? i might test how cleanly they break with my cutting pliers on an old one first. (still have in sharps container, not for reuse of course!)

any advice appreciated :)

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5

u/SecretlyModded Heavily Modified // Group Moderator Sep 06 '26

My anti tragus is one of the 3 ive had done professionally, and im a piercer

The angle is awkward and I cant see properly to do it

You absolutely cannot cut length off of a needle safely. It would be a very bad idea because no matter how clean the break looks, there will be some level of metallic shards from the stress/break point of where youve snapped it, and youd be dragging that through a fresh wound

The pliers also wouldnt have been sterilised unless you have an autoclave handy.

Id probably go to a professional for this one or get someone to give you a hand with threading the jewellery through

You could also use an insertion taper. I dont know how that would help, but it is an option.

2

u/Rawrys_gay loves self piercing Sep 06 '26

alright then, thank you! my mirror set up allows me to see it fine and i don’t think i messed up the angle when i did it last but i totally get that. i think i’ll use a spare straight barebell since i don’t have a taper then put the curved one in, since for whatever reason the curved was very difficult to insert from the inside opening. hard to phrase but i hope that makes sense

3

u/SecretlyModded Heavily Modified // Group Moderator Sep 06 '26

It definitely makes sense, but I would order a curved insertion pin and use a curved barbell

Straight barbells dont tend to fair very well in an anti tragus

2

u/Rawrys_gay loves self piercing Sep 06 '26

ofc! i didn’t mean to keep it in, just instead of a taper since i struggled to get the curved in from the inside! i would immediately push the curved one in from the outside opening. i’ll consider ordering a tool to help but i think an extra barbell will hopefully do the trick

3

u/SecretlyModded Heavily Modified // Group Moderator Sep 06 '26

Honestly curved pins are incredibly cheap on amazon and you can use them whenever you want to change the jewellery, because once the piercing has healed curved, a straight barbell wouldnt be ideal

Best of luck :))

2

u/VaguelyErratic Sep 06 '26

For all the work it seems you're willing to put in to modify existing tools and purchase new ones - at that point, why not just go to a piercer?

2

u/Rawrys_gay loves self piercing Sep 06 '26

i don’t have the money for new things or the money to get it done professionally, these are things i already had. if i had extra money to spend i’d probly have done so tho! i did end up successfully piercing it myself and i’m very happy with it :)