8 Piercing-Myths you shouldn´t believe anymore in 2025

1.   A fresh Piercing needs to be twisted or otherwise it grows in.

Wrong! Touching, twisting, moving or removing a fresh piercing will not only irritate the wound, but can also transfer dirt and bacteria into the piercing channel, which can lead to infection.

This myth is based on an outdated technique: piercing the ears centuries ago at home with needle and thread, with the thread remaining in the fresh wound. Obviously back then it made sense to move it, as the thread was porous and could stick to the wound, but luckily these times are over and piercing usually happens in a professional setup with high polished, non-porous jewelry.

2.     2. A fresh piercing needs medical jewelry 

Even though the term "medical jewelry" gets favorably used, especially when it comes to parlors using piercing guns, there is no such thing as “medical jewelry”, simply because that would indicate a medical use. Very often jewelry sold under this umbrella term will vary from surgical steel in different grades as to different grades of titanium. These “mystery materials”, especially surgical steel (which basically means its safe in use for a medical tool, not for permanent wear), can have any mixture of alloys, including nickel, if we don’t talk about IMPLANT GRADE material. And that’s what a fresh piercing needs: implant great jewelry, so jewelry out of the same material a medical implant would be made of: ASTM-F136 Titanium (so you see, not even every titanium grade is doable!). 14 karat gold can also be fine, after all that’s what a dentist would use for tooth crowns.  Also keep an eye on high polished jewelry, which only found in threadless and internally threaded jewelry, as microscratches on jewelry surface is similar to having sandpaper rub in your wound constantly.

And to be fair, since your skin is the biggest organ of the body, it even makes sense to keep on sticking to biocompatible jewelry options when the piercing is healed and matured, to avoid irritation and discoloration of the skin.

3.      3. A fresh piercing needs to be disinfected.

Yes and no. The piercing area should be prepped with disinfection (well, alcohol pads) BEFORE the puncture wound is performed. After this the body is very much self cleaning and, due to the jewelry keeping the channel open as a drainage point, pushes out all the dirt that tries to enter from the outside world with the help of wound exudate, which dries into a crust on the wounds surface. Now, the only help we need to give the body is cleaning this crust off with sterile saline solution, as it is isotonic and similar to our own bodyfluids.

Disinfections, on the other hand, include different elements that can have - depending on type of disinfection - the following downsides: toxicity to cartilage, wound irritation and burning or scabbing of the skin.

4.      4.Piercings can cure migraines, anxiety and other ailments.

In the 2010s the myth of the “migraine piercing” got started and was followed by many similar new names and functions for long establish piercings. Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence about successful interchanging acupuncture practice with permanent piercings and elevation of health issues (the author should know, as none of their cartilage piercing did much more for them than looking amazing).

Also functionally those two practices differ strongly, as acupuncture is a short term stimulation of a specific nervebundle in the body, whereas a piercing is the creation of a puncture wound in which jewelry would be inserted – so constant pressure which would desensitize the acupuncturepoint.

5.      5.If I abandon a piercing it will heal shut.

Yes and no; this one entirely depends on how old the piercing is and on if it was angry or injured when the jewelry was removed. A good rule of thumb is, if the piercing is at least a year or two old and happily healed, we can even reinsert jewelry after more than a decade. This being said, the piercing channel shrinks over time if it is left empty, which makes it necessary to consult a professional piercer for reinsertion.

6.      6.An infected piercing should be removed.

One should never remove an infected piercing, as the jewelry in the piercing channel helps in draining the wound and keeps it open. Removing the jewelry thus would lead for the wound to close up and the infection to encapsulate, with no way to go; often leading to serious issues. The way to handle this is, first of all clearing up with the piercer if it is infection (rule of thumb: infection usually comes with more than localized redness, swelling, pain and oozing) or simply irritation; if your piercer has any advice on how to handle the situation. If it really is a proper infection, antibiotics should be taken until the infection is cleared up, after which the piercing can be removed if one wishes so.

7.      7.Earlobe piercings are healed after a few days or a couple weeks.

Many people want to get their ears pierced a few weeks before an event so they can wear a specific set of earrings for that special day. Unfortunately we have to disappoint you here – while a smaller wound usually heals up in a short time, piercings function slightly different: a cut heals fast as the wound edges lay back on each other and the body (mainly) only needs to build connective tissue to close it superficially up in step one, whereas we insert a foreign object (the jewelry) into a wound so skin can build in the piercing channel, forming a type of tunnel. This is far more work for the body and happens in steps – healing (the first weeks), healed (the first months, the new skin is still not fully stable and strong) and matured (the wound is fully healed, the skin is stable and looks in the piercing channel just as in the skin around it. Changing jewelry before the matured phase is reached can lead to setbacks in the healing, so for an earlobe a wait of minimum 2-3 months until other jewelry is worn makes sense – for a cartilage piercing 6-12 months even until you can insert a ring.

8.      8. All piercing jewelry is equal, some just costs more.

We wish it were true, but unfortunately there are different factors on quality jewelry, and different levels of quality affect your fresh or fully healed piercing different. While material is of utmost importance (minimal standards are Astm-F136 Titanium, 14 karat Gold or ASTM-F138 Surgical Steel) polish and threading matter even more. So as a first factor, make sure not to wear externally threaded jewelry, but internally threaded or threadless – the externally thread on the piercingstud functions like a little saw everytime you remove or insert the jewelry, leading always to microinjuries, often times the top not fully closing and always leaving some threading exposed; whereas internal or threadless jewelry glides smoothly in and out.

Next step polish: If it doesn’t shine like a mirror on the surface its usually because of microscratches, which would constantly move in your piercing channel, which is the piercing equivalent to massaging someone with sandpaper. This is why it i important to chose the jewelry going into your body to be made by reputible makers used in the piercing industry, not just known or famous jewelry companies who dabble now into also making piercing jewelry, as they ususally dont know about the necesessities to keep a piercing healthy.

Of course material needs to be the right one, but now you know how even an expensive goldpiece can be bad for your piercing with a goldstamp on the wearable area or the wrong threading.