Top 10 Tips for Cleaning an Ear Piercing

While your piercing is still healing, don’t take your jewelry out for an extended period. Doing so may cause the hole to close.

How to Clean and Care for Your Piercing

Karen L. Hudson is a tattoo artist and contributing writer for Byrdie. She has been an amateur artist as a hobby since grade school, and served a 12 month tattoo apprenticeship in a tattoo studio.

Updated on 11/09/22
Medically reviewed by

Julia A. Siegel, MD is a board-certified dermatologist based in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology and has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Board-Certified Dermatologist
Fact checked by
Anna Harris is an experienced fact-checker and researcher and a beauty writer and editor.

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In This Article

How to Clean Your Piercing Acceptable Healing Aids and Products

The months after getting a piercing are key to making sure it heals properly and doesn’t get infected. Despite how casual and common it is for people to get pierced, each new piercing is essentially a wound. And like the aftermath of any trauma, aftercare is extremely important. Slacking off on your aftercare or using harmful products will likely prolong your discomfort and the healing process.

Before you leave the piercing or tattoo shop, most piercers will give you aftercare instructions. Since they are the experts, it’s best to listen to their advice and follow it closely until the piercing is completely healed. Even if you forget a step or lose the instructions, you can always give them a call for a reminder. But if you’re really at a loss, these rules are reliable guidelines to help heal any basic piercing.

How to Clean Your Piercing

1. First, wash your hands thoroughly. You don’t want to introduce any bacteria to the piercing because it’s an open wound that is vulnerable to infection. So it’s important to never touch your piercing or jewelry with dirty hands.
2. Saturate a cotton ball with warm water, and gently wipe away any “crusties” that have gathered around the piercing site. If you have a scab, do not pick at it. Then throw the cotton ball away.
3. Apply a generous amount of unscented liquid soap to your fingertip, and apply it to the piercing site and jewelry. Make sure you get the soap everywhere, but rotating your jewelry is not necessary as long as you work the soap around the piercing and jewelry completely. If you do rotate the piercing, this could introduce bacteria from the jewelry into the wound, causing irritation or even infection. It’s best to just clean the piercing and jewelry thoroughly without actually moving it.
4. Rinse the piercing and jewelry several times with warm water, ensuring that all soap has been removed.
5. Dry your piercing with a clean paper towel and then dispose of it.

Acceptable Healing Aids and Products

If standard soap and water isn’t your thing and you’d rather turn the healing up a notch, these products can help keep your piercing nice and clean.

• Emu Oil: This oil is full of fatty acids meant to help reduce inflammation and pain. It’s relied on by piercers as a universal healing product for new piercings.
• H2Ocean: This sea salt saline solution is often used by piercers to help clean the piercing area.
• Saline Solution: Less expensive and more readily available than most other products, saline solution is often recommended in soothing and healing a new piercing. It’s also an acceptable substitute for sea salt soaks which is when you submerge your piercing into salt water to help clean it.
• Ointments: Ointments are usually the number one most-recommended therapy post-injury and piercing to stimulate wound healing. Just avoid antibacterial products, which are typically unnecessary unless the piercing is infected.

Do Not Use These Products

• Hydrogen Peroxide – Hydrogen peroxide kills bacteria, but it also kills the white blood cells attempting to heal your piercing. It can cause irritation and lengthen overall healing time.
• Rubbing Alcohol – Alcohol may dry the skin and irritate the raw piercing.
• Glyoxide – This is a product that contains hydrogen peroxide, and it might hinder healing rather than aiding it.
• Ear Care Solution – Solutions that are provided by jewelry boutiques and department store piercers usually contain alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and other harmful chemicals that might aggravate a new piercing.

New piercings and sometimes irritated piercings might benefit from a sea salt soak. This simple remedy is meant to soothe pain and draw out infection.

Article Sources

Byrdie takes every opportunity to use high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial guidelines to learn more about how we keep our content accurate, reliable and trustworthy.

1. Jeengar MK, Kumar PS, Thummuri D, et al. Review on emu products for use as complementary and alternative medicine. Nutrition. 2015;31(1):21-27. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2014.04.004
2. Cleveland Clinic. What is hydrogen peroxide good for? Updated December 29, 2020.

Top 10 Tips for Cleaning an Ear Piercing

It’s best to clean a piercing by gently dabbing a cotton swab soaked in a salt solution. Avoid cleaning with fragrant soaps. Before you start, wash your hands and avoid touching surfaces that may have bacteria.

Ear piercings are one of the most common types of piercings. Their possible locations include the earlobe, the curve of cartilage at the top of the ear, and the folds just outside the ear canal.

Although they’re very popular and relatively safe, you still need to treat your piercing with care and attention to avoid any complications.

This article will focus on top tips for cleaning an ear piercing and signs to watch out for that may indicate an infection. And if you’re not sure whether you’re ready for a piercing (or exactly where to get it), we’ll help you with that, too.

The first thing you should consider is where to place your piercing.

Here are some popular options:

• Earlobe. This is the go-to ear piercing spot at the bottom of your ear. This piercing is easy to clean and take care of, and it heals much faster than other ear piercings.
• Helix. This is the curvy tissue at the very top of the ear. It falls into second place after the lobe piercing in popularity. It heals a little more slowly than a lobe piercing but is still easy to keep clean.
• Tragus. Right above your earlobe, this harder section of your ear is on the edge of your face and right in front of your ear canal. It’s not as common as the lobe or helix for piercing, and it’s a little more difficult to take care of. There’s some anecdotal evidence that a tragus piercing may have benefits for those with anxiety and migraine.

Once you figure out what kind of piercing you want, do some research on piercing studios. Here’s a brief checklist of what to look for:

• Are there licensed piercers on staff? They should be certified by the Association of Professional Piercers.
• Is the shop reputable? Do they have good reviews on Yelp or other sites? Do they specialize in piercings? Avoid retail stores that offer piercings, as they may not be clean, safe, or even licensed. You may want to look at tattoo shops, too. Many of them have licensed piercers and are highly regulated by state and local health agencies.
• Do the piercers take proper safety precautions? Do they wash their hands, wear a new pair of medical-grade gloves for each piercing, and use new, sterile needles for each piercing?

Now that you’ve gotten your piercing, it’s important to take care of it. The first few weeks are crucial to making sure it heals properly. Here are our top 10 tips for cleaning an ear piercing to avoid infection.

Top 10 tips for cleaning an ear piercing

1. Clean your piercing when you do other regular hygiene habits. Clean it when you brush your teeth or take a shower to give yourself a gentle reminder every day.
2. Wash your hands. Wash with warm water and gentle soap before you touch your piercing to avoid introducing bacteria to the area.
3. Clean with a clean cotton pad or swab dipped in salt solution. You can make this solution by mixing 1 teaspoon of salt in a cup of warm water. Use this around the pierced area a few times a day to remove any bacteria.
4. Dab (don’t wipe) the piercing. Dry with a clean towel or tissue so you don’t damage the tissue while it’s healing.
5. Avoid using perfumed soaps. Clean the skin around the piercing with a mild antiseptic soap and water.
6. Clean the pierced area whenever you take the piercing out. This includes when you put it back in, too. Bacteria can quickly get on jewelry when you expose it to the air or set it on a surface like a counter or table.
7. Don’t clean your piercing in the bathroom. This is especially true of public ones. Even the cleanest home bathrooms usually have high concentrations of bacteria.
8. Don’t lie on the pierced area for long periods of time. Sleeping or lying down on your piercing can trap moisture or bacteria in the area, increasing your risk for infection.
9. Don’t get any hair or body products in the piercing area. Be careful when you use shampoo, soap, gel, pomade, hairspray, or other products that can get near the piercing and irritate the tissue.
10. Watch out for any abnormal or discolored discharge. See your piercer or doctor right away if you notice any unusual discharge as it might be a sign of an infection.

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Earlobe piercings are the quickest to heal. They typically take about 1 to 2 months to fully heal.

Cartilage piercings elsewhere on your ear will take longer to heal. It may take up to 6 months or even 1 year before a helix or tragus piercing is fully healed.

While your piercing is still healing, don’t take your jewelry out for an extended period. Doing so may cause the hole to close.

The answer to this question is different for everyone. It all depends on how fast you heal and what kind of piercing you got.

If you’re unsure whether you’re ready to change out your jewelry, ask your piercer about a month or two after you got your piercing. They can examine the area and give you a definitive answer.

The typical symptoms of an infected piercing include the following:

• aching or throbbing pain in and around the piercing
• swelling
• redness
• itching
• burning
• abnormal yellowish or whitish discharge

See your doctor right away if you think your piercing is infected.

Ear piercings are a very common piercing. You still need to take good and consistent care of them to make sure you avoid infection, tissue damage, or losing the piercing altogether.

Last medically reviewed on May 10, 2021

How we reviewed this article:

Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations. We avoid using tertiary references. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.

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