It seems that no matter what I do, I keep getting really poor surface piercing photos sent in. While I'm glad to say that people are finally starting to come around to the idea that surface piercings need to be done with surface bars (although there are many piercers out there who use the word without knowing what it is), it doesn't do any good if they don't know how to use them.
The disturbing trend I've been seeing lately is piercers using surface bars, but using them very wrong so they don't work properly. Anyway, in the diagram below you see five potential surface bar placements. All five are variations I see regularly. Only the first one is a good placement. Here's why:
- The bar has tight bends, sits uniformly under the skin, penetrates at a perpendicular angle, and contains enough space above the skin to accommodate for minor swelling.
- The bars are not long enough, which means that there's no room for swelling to occur. The holes may enlarge, the piercing may be drawn up and into rejection (it may start to surface like #4), and it may not be able to drain as well. Note: Let me be clear that I've greatly overemphasized the lengths on diagrams 1 – 3. In #1, the balls may be gently touching the skin, and #2 is meant to show bars that are short enough to pull the bar up against the skin, and the ball down toward to hole.
- The bars are too long, so the piercing will get twisted constantly. This twisting leverages a lot of force onto the exit holes, causing them to enlarge and can easily start a rejection process.
- The bar was placed crooked and/or the placement is to long or short causing the bar to twist lengthwise. If one end surfaces healing will be no easier than with a straight barbell and rejection is likely.
- It's not even a surface bar. You can't just put bends in a bar. It will usually reject if you use such jewelry.
Post a Comment