Fuck Yeah, Stretched Labrets!

Anonymous asked: Hey :) I just wanted to ask about gum erosion as I've been seriously considering getting my labret scalpelled for about the last six months. Trouble is, I already have some gum erosion at the front of my mouth. I was just wondering if you're experienced any erosion since you have had your labret stretched and if you know anyone that has had it done and hasn't encountered any difficulties? Thanks very much for your time! :)

I have yet to get mine done, but Jared from OneTribe has covered the topic better than I ever could.

Stretched Labret (Lip Piercing): Ensuring longevity and minimizing damage

onetribeorganics:

We get asked quite frequently to talk about labrets, methods for stretching and the dangers of tooth damage and gum erosion. Below you find a response to one of those emails which we think sums up our thoughts quite well on the subject.

I will speak simply of my personal experience with my own stretched labret, currently at about 21mm. Labrets and other oral work are really the only ‘common’ piercings that have the potential to result in permanent damage that is very expensive to repair, if not irreparable altogether, in comparison to other procedures and stretched piercings. There are some safeguards that can be taken to give you the best chance that damage will not occur, but the reality is that in many cases it will eventually happen over time and that is something that needs to be considered.

The first safeguard is finding an experienced artist that has done many procedures which have healed well with no issues. Many people overlook the fact that not everyone is anatomically suitable for having a large piece of jewelry floating between their lip and gums/teeth, and an experienced artist will in some cases be able to recognize instances where there will definitely be problems. Placement is also very important, and is of course one of the single largest variables that can effect the long term success or failure of the procedure.

The second safeguard is properly fitting jewelry of a correct dimension and material for the piercing. The shape of the piece at any given size can make the difference between gum damage or not. Concave backs tend to be more suitable as the size increases. Going from round pieces to ovals allows you to minimize the height of the piece as you stretch, but there is a point of diminishing returns where an extremely wide and very narrow piece can put extreme pressure on the soft tissue at the corners of the piercing and becomes very difficult to fit because the very wide back must wrap around the gumline evenly without causing pressure. Weight is something that can be problematic (weight can cause prolonged healing, or issues with painful pocketing in the lip) but can also be useful for pulling the back of the jewelry toward the lip and away from the gums. It is also possible for an experienced jeweler to create flared pieces that will sandwich your piercing between a flare toward the face of the jewelry and the back, also pulling the back away from the gumline.

The last safeguard is simply to pay attention to your body. Be conscious of the movements you make with your mouth, and take steps to minimize any actions which result in the jewelry being pushed or sucked against your gums. Consider switching materials when you are eating, being active or engaging in any activities where a softer material or modified shape might minimize or prevent potential pressure on the gums or chipped teeth. Sleeping with labret jewelry out at night is extremely good for the piercing and allows you to prevent unconscious actions that would put pressure on your gums or teeth. If you care more for your oral longevity than your piercing, my last piece of advice is this: if you see signs of damage that you are not okay with, make arrangements to consider changing your routines, the shape of your piece, or if all else fails, removal.

Having a large labret piercing long term is all about priorities - my personal choice is for my labret, and although I practice everything mentioned above, I do have some minimal gun erosion that I expected. I know that while I have not seen anything further in several years, I can foresee eventually needing to make a realistic choice between my bottom teeth and my labret. When the time comes, I will make it with confidence and pride knowing that it is the best decision for my lifestyle and world view, and I encourage you to be open with yourself in doing the same.

Jared Karnes
Owner/Jeweler
Onetribe LLC

Pauly Unstoppable’s guide to stretching.

Pauly Unstoppable’s Guide to Stretching.

INTRO

I have been stretching my ears off and on for about 13 years now, so I have picked up a lot of knowledge and tricks along the way. People message me constantly asking me about how to stretch their ears and how to fix shit they fucked up and so forth so I thought I would just lay out all I possibly could tell you right now, so if you fuck your ears up after reading this, I have no sympathy for you and it’s your problem to deal with it.

There isn’t a piercing on my body I haven’t stretched, from ears to balls, so I have a good idea of what is a good way and a bad way to go about stretching things, this isn’t really just a faqs on ear stretching most all of this can be applied to other piercings as well

Though to apply them to other piercings sometimes the time frames and methods change slightly. Like if you are going to stretch cartilage it will take alotttt longer to stretch then ears on the average. Your ear cartilage is much denser thus a lot more resistant to stretching, same can be said to a lot of things

That all being said not everyone is the same of course and stretching certain things can come easier to some people mainly based on their genetics and body make up and such. It’s advised not to use a time frame or method someone else used that seems to be too fast or unsafe just cause it semi worked for them. When they say it worked for them they are most likely leaving out some details such as how much it hurt, all the blood it created, or the nasty blowouts they tried to cut off with gardening shears (yes I have actually heard of someone doing that).

Some people are stubborn and aren’t going to listen no matter how much they are told and will try to sometimes pressure you to do things they have done, don’t listen it’s not worth it. All the setbacks you will have from going too fast or skipping sizes will triple your time and probably leave you with a lot of scar tissue and blowouts you have to figure out how to reverse, or lobes so thin each size is gone to with breath held and fingers crossed hoping the bottom of the lobe doesn’t split

I beg you for the sake of your lobes please heed my advice; at least read it, consider it, think about it.

                                                                                 Yours Truly

                                                                            Pauly Unstoppable

• PATIENCE IS KEY

The biggest and most important secret to lobe stretching or stretching in general is PATIENCE; patience is a virtue in stretching the more time you take the better off you will be. I know in this culture and society we want it now now now. We are in the age of instant gratification, but alas that is not something that can exist in body modification. It takes time, patience, dedication, and loving to accomplish most of our goals and wants. Yes I said loving. If you don’t have love for your lobes or body or whatever it’s going to show you the same back. That’s what is happening to the kids you see at the mall with acrylic bullshit shoved in there red sore oozing ears that haven’t been cleaned for a decade. You get what you put into it. If you can’t love yourself then how the hell are you going to love someone else, can I get an amen.

You need to wait a month AT LEAST before going up a size or even thinking about going up a size, this isn’t a race to see who can have the bigger stretched ears, you don’t get scene points it doesn’t make you cool, if you are doing it for that please impale yourself on gardening equipment and save us all the headache

Personally I think 2 months is best. Honestly I hate to put a time on the process at all, but people need a minimum to work from at times. I personally like the method of just chilling and waiting till your jewelry will naturally and with little effort slide into your lobes. That’s a thing that has no time frame. That’s where really patience and dedication is measured. Could take a month. Could take a year.

The general reasoning behind why you should wait a minimum of a month or so to stretch all boils down to collagen and skin elasticity. Sort of long story short when you stretch your ears you are stretching out the spaces between the collagen molecules of your ear skin, your body needs time to fill back in those gaps with more collagen, when you rush and stretch before your ear has had a chance to replace those molecules you then make the gaps bigger, in turn making the areas weaker and thinner, this is what causes thin spots and weak spots, that’s why it’s imperative you do not stretch faster than your ears want you to go, and you don’t skip sizes. In the same respect when you skip sizes you are stretching those spaces out so far it takes the body wayyy longer to fill them in and sometimes just can’t at all, which is again where you get thin spots. So take it from me take your time have patience and don’t skip sizes your ears will thank you for it and you will thank me later if you listen to me that is, but who am I just some crazy guy with a lot of shit in his face ha-ha

• METHODS

As far as sizes are concerned, the smaller the jump the better, never EVER EVER skip sizes, I don’t care if you friend did it and was ok, you aren’t your friend, your friends is stupid anyway, you don’t want to be that person, refer to the time frame paragraph as to why it’s a huge mistake to skip sizes

DONT SKIP SIZES, I can’t stress that any further, that’s why your ears get thin is from rushing ill repeat it again if I have to DON’T SKIP SIZES EVERRR ( NO WIRE HANGERS EVERRRR hahahah)

DONT USE TAPERS. All you are going to do is go to fast and tear and or blow out your lobe. They let you go way to fast and let you force stretches. If your ears are above 00g you shouldn’t be looking at tapers anyway. The only people that might be able to actually taper your ear would be a piercer, because they can tell if you are ready or not and won’t force it, but even then I still say just wait longer you aren’t in that big of a hurry. I really wish that places like Hot topic and Spencer’s (yes I know I’m a manager at one) wouldn’t sell tapers as jewelry or a stretching tool because it sends the wrong ideas to kids. Tapers really are made for initial piercings and for reinserting jewelry into already healed holes. Not to force open a hole into a larger size tearing skin and causing a lot of pressure. Yes that’s what they do. As you can tell I hate them ha-ha

NEVER EVER use weight or silicone plugs to stretch, they are not made to stretch at all. Doing so puts you at great risk of thinning and snapping and using silicone puts you a greater risk of swelling, ripping, and necrosis. Weights are ok to wear in moderation they are a very pretty style of jewelry, but that’s all they are a decoration not a method of making your ears bigger. When you try to use weights to stretch it focuses the weight all onto a single small area which causes that tissue to be the main area that stretches, aka making your skin stretch unevenly causing a thin spot, which is not fun at all.

Silicone…..silicone….ugh silicone…..it’s a great material to wear but not a material to use to stretch. The problem with trying to use that method to stretch is silicone is very tacky so when you try to use it to stretch it pulls the skin very tight but doesn’t allow it to slide over the jewelry at all. It cause micro tears in the lobes that is then pulled even more to create small ulcers. And if left unchecked the tackiness of the jewelry can trap a lot of not so fun fluids and continue the pull effect and eventfully causing necrosis which basically means your ear rots in half. I have seen it personally happen to a friend I know, so it’s not just me talking out of my ass.

A very easy and good way to stretch your ears is by slowly wrapping tape around the jewelry you already wearing. Slowly making the diameter of the jewelry bigger. Bondage tape is the best tape hands down (link at the bottom of the page) or you can even buy it at Spencer’s gifts. It’s about 7 bucks for a roll and that roll will last you forever. You can use PTFE tape if you have to but seriously invest in bondage. You can reuse it over and over.

Only add a layer or two of tape every couple days. Don’t add 4 or 5 every day and don’t add tape more than once a day. The point is to go little by little not go really fast. The idea behind the taping is you are slowly and safely increasing the diameter of the jewelry in a much smaller step causing only a fraction of an mm at a time. After a week really does add up to a lot. This is also a really good method if you know you’re going to be going rather large and don’t want to drop a ton of money on jewelry you will only be wearing a month or 2. You can usually successfully tape up a few sizes before you really need to buy new jewelry. It’s important to pick proper jewelry to tape though, but it’s mostly up to personal preference.

NEVER EVER use electrical tape, medical tape, duct tape, or any other tape that is rough or has an adhesive, the adhesive can run and irritate your ear, and some are sharp and can cut your ear, I don’t care if your friend or you have done it before and it worked fine, you are playing the odds when you do it, and the odds are only in your favor for so long, don’t come crying to me when you fuck your ears when it does run out

• CARE AND LOVE

People ask me all the time about how I keep my ears so thick, so I am finally just going to let the cat out of the bag. It’s pretty simply anyway

1. If you are at least 1/2, sleep with your jewelry out at night. It gives the ear time to relax and increases the circulation and makes it just all warm and happy. In the morning if you ears are a bit tight just put in some smaller plugs for like 20 mins to loosen them up and the other jewelry will slide in easier.

2. Do daily oil massages with jojoba oil, vitamin e oil, or if you really have to olive oil 2 or 3 times a day is the best. I would say once in the morning when you go to put your plugs back in and once at night when you take them out, however oil is not a magic elixir its not going to cure your thin or blown out lobes over night! its simply a method of making your ears happier and increases the blood flow to the area to promote new cell growth which in turn can help build new tissue BUT IT TAKES TIMEEEEEEE

3. Down size. Yes I said down size. The best thing I have found to get my ears thick is to constantly down size and re stretch over and over, the idea is when you stretch you make more collagen, so if you shrink and stretch again properly you are building up even more collagen which bulks up the tissue.

That’s it…yeah I know it’s not that magical is it. the main thing that really keeps your ears healthy and thick is just doing it right and loving them and babying them I mean you don’t have to go overboard with it, but wash them regularly don’t hurt them give them nice jewelry etc, the small things really do count

IMPORTANT, if you get a blow out, tear, have pain or bleeding, take your jewelry out immediately don’t wait it out, put in different jewelry

This is not a race this is your body…your ears….you are with them for life, so treat them right if they are fucked you need to take care of them immediately

If you are stretching and its hurts a lot YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG, if you are stretching and it bleeds YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG, never force a stretch if your ear isn’t ready give it another week and try again

Don’t be cheap with your ears. Don’t just cram bullshit stuff in your ear around the house. If you don’t have the money to buy real jewelry then wait save and get the good stuff. You get what you put into something. If you get good jewelry then your ears will benefit from it and so will you. There is a lot of shit jewelry out there that will hurt you more than help you.

When stretching I say to stay away from wood, bone, silicone and acrylic, healed holes not so bad but never fresh. I dealt with silicone already but let me jump in a little on acrylic and organics in fresh piercings. The problem with acrylic is that well its acrylic ha-ha. Your body is not really meant to have that in it. It’s not hypoallergenic and can cause some really bad reactions i.e. allergic and otherwise. Your body at times can see acrylic as a foreign substance and try to break down the other layer of it and release it into your blood stream…..so yeah not good ha-ha

Organics are not bad at all. I love stone and wood etc, but when it comes to stretching they can be a big no no. stone if its dense enough can be fine, but there are a lot of porous stones out there so watch out. This leads me into wood. I love wood with a passion it is all I really wear in my ears, but it can be dangerous to stretch with. If you were to get micro tears in your lobes from an iffy stretch the plasma your body creates to heal can get absorbed into the wood and start to rot and release some not so nice bacterium that can give infections which smells and is gross and can potentially kill you. All can also be said for horn and bone. To porous for fresh body contact for sure.

• SIZE CHART: read it, know it, and follow it

Millimeters

1/32″

0.031″     0.794mm

18ga         1.024mm

3/64″         1.191mm

16ga         1.291mm

14ga            1.628mm

12ga          2.053mm

3/32″          2.381mm

10ga          2.588mm

8ga          3.264mm

5/32″          3.969mm

6ga          4.115mm

3/16″          4.763mm

4ga          5.189mm

2ga          6.544mm

0ga         8.251mm

00ga          9.266mm

3/8″          9.525mm

000ga      10.41mm

7/16″         11.11mm

0000ga      11.68mm

1/2″          12.7mm

9/16″          14.3mm

5/8″          15.9mm

11/16″      17.5mm

3/4″          19.1mm

13/16″      20.6mm

7/8″          22.2mm

15/16″      23.8mm

1″          25.4mm

1 1/16”

1 1/8”

1 ¼”

1 3/8”

1 7/16”

1 ½”

1 9/16”

1 5/8”

1 11/16”

1 ¾”

1 13/16”

1 7/8”

2”

2 1/16”

2 1/8”

2 ¼”

2 3/8”

2 7/16”

2 ½”

2 9/16”

2 5/8”

2 11/16”

2 ¾”

2 13/16”

2 7/8”

2 15/16”

3”

3 1/16”

3 1/8”

3 ¼”

3 3/8”

3 7/16”

3 ½”

3 9/16”

3 5/8”

3 11/16”

3 ¾”

3 13/16”

3 7/8”

3 15/16”

3”

• LINKS AND KNOWLEDGE

1. http://www.bodyartforms.com/
2. http://www.onetribe.nu/
3. This link has been removed by beautifully modified women
4. http://www.glasswearstudios.com/
5. http://www.ebonedesigns.com/
6. http://www.quetzallijewelry.com/
7. KNOWLEDGE
8. www.bmezine.com
9. STUDIOS
10. ARTISITS
11. NOTEABLE PEOPLE
12. LINKS OF INTEREST
13. BONDAGE TAPE
14. https://www39.safesecureweb.com/bondagetape/order.asp
15. JOJOBA OIL
16. http://www.jojobaking.com/?gclid=CI_ojPzl0owCFQhaZQode2RHtQ
17. http://www.drugstore.com/qxp83680_333181_sespider/desert_essence/organic_jojoba_oil.htm

RANDOM YET WORTHY OF OUR TIME

• THE LAST WORD

That’s all I got for you. My little nugget of knowledge and guidance. As time goes on ill try to update it more and more with little tidbits I pick up along the way because I’ll be the first to say I don’t know everything. Anyone that claims too probably doesn’t know much at all. The world of body art is an every growing one. Always be open for growth and learning no matter how long you have been into it. It doesn’t make you stupid or needy or uncool to ask or seek help in your work. It makes you smart and ahead of the game really. It takes a strong person to ask for advice.

Take what I say to heart or with a grain of salt or with a watchful eye. I don’t care just take it. If it’s useful for you I have done my job. If it’s not eh I have still done my job. If you have anything that should be added to this please send me an email. This doesn’t belong to me. I am simple a messenger. This knowledge belongs to us all so it deserves to be heard and added to and passed along so we can all prosper from it.

Well now that I have gone all philosophical on you I will bow out gracefully or well as gracefully as I can allow anyway

Hopefully this did some good, please take care of your ears not for my sake but for yours. You will thank me later.

Unstoppable Out

(Source: hellamodified, via your-body-is-a-canvas)

Anonymous asked: What is the best way to stretch a philtrum? I have been debating about getting mine pierced and stretching it, but I have no idea how to (talons, tapers, pinchers, or something else).

If you haven’t gotten pierced yet get pierced with a larger gauge needle to avoid the first awkward stretches.

If it doesn’t self stretch tape.

Anonymous asked: Same anon here. Thanks for your reply, but I should have mentioned in my previous ask that it has already been changed to fitted jewelry. It was after the change from initial jewelry to the fitted one that I noticed this problem. The new jewelry isn't too tight or anything though. Does that change your advice? Thanks again for your help; I appreciate it.

Keep an eye on it and have your piercer look at it just to be safe.

Nesting a little bit isn’t an issue. If the nesting bothers you or it starts sinking deeper go back to your piercer and try something a couple mm longer.

I’m happy to help. Good luck.

you-aredoomed asked: i just went from a 14 to a 12, how long should i wait to put my 10 in?

Labrets should self stretch. Wait until it’s ready. The last thing you want is a blowout on your face.

At smaller sizes a taper might be necessary. Everyone’s different so listen to your body. Wait at least a month. Personally I like to wait longer just to be safe.

Anonymous asked: Are labret piercings both on top and below lips? I always thought that the piercing above your top lip was called a Medusa (medoodoo) but that could just be slang like the most names for piercings today haha but are they medusas and labrets?

I opened up The Piercing Bible to the exact page I needed. Miracles are real.

“Labret derives from the Latin word labrum, meaning “lip.” Any piercing in the region of the mouth is a labret, thought some use the term only to denote the placement centred underneath the bottom lip.”

-The Piercing Bible, pg.112

The term “medusa” was coined pretty early in western piercing so it’s legit. Piercers will know what you’re talking about; unlike the crazy names kids are coming up with these days.