ear stretching

mac123

just wondering do you stretch your lobes by yourself using tapers or do you have it done professionally?

Gauge

Stretch them (and tongue and septum) by myself using a mixture of tapers and tape.

Léan

Yeah I'm the same as Gauge, did my ears myself with a mixture of tapers and tape.

mac123

is it hard to do? seems fairly straight forward! how much are tapers?

Gauge

To be honest, you can stretch your ears with plumber's tape/PTFE tape alone, you get it in B&Q and places (I use them more for my tongue and septum, they're a bit dodgy to tape) I get tapers online, there's a variety of them on bodyartforms.com. They're handy enough for small sizes that are difficult to tape, but at larger sizes I found tape easier because it's completely pain and hassle-free if you do it right!

If you do decide to get tapers, get metal ones and some lube... and don't wear them as jewellery!

Here's two stretching FAQs I swear by, they're good for time/healing guidelines and stuff:
http://www.onetribe.nu/faqs/11
http://bodyartforms.com/forumsV9/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21

Will

stretching my lobes and labret myself, tapers for smaller sizes but once you go above 15/16mm you gotta find a better way i.e taping them with ptfe etc. in fact id recomment taping from the get go because its easier on your ears, going up in 1mm increments is harsh enough as it is. taping you control the size and it isnt as rough on ya, also cheaper lol

Crumble Froo

what is ptfe tape? and what are tapers and how do they work?
and could insulation tape substitute for ptfe?

Gauge

PTFE tape is a white tape that sticks to itself, which makes it good for stretching, electrical tape generally isn't recommended because it has sharp edges sometimes, and adhesive which is generally not something you'd want in your ear for long periods of time...

Tapers/insertion pins are like long, blunt needles that you push through your ear, stretching the hole to the next size. They come in different lengths (longer is better) and some are threaded so you can screw barbells and stuff onto them. There's a risk of ripping and tearing if the hole isn't ready to go through the next size and the taper gets shoved through.

Crumble Froo

cool, thanks for that gauge (and ot the people who msn'd me), i think between ye all i have a good picture of what's what now. ok, im gonna have to find ptfe, which should be interesting, but that looks like the best option. i used sellotape before, and i took my jewellery out only to find the sellotape still in the piercing. was gonna start with teh insulation tape this morning, but perhaps not.

Gauge

PTFE is also known as plumbing tape, you can find it pretty much anywhere they sell tools/DIY stuff!

(I robbed mine from my dad's tool box )

Crumble Froo

i dont know anywhere that sells tools/DIY stuff... ill convince the b/f to bring me for a drive later, methinks.

garthv

Ive gotten both mine done by taper in a piercing parlour, I'm only at 8mm in both ears though, I'd say once I go over 10mm I'll start stretching them myself with the PTFE method

Crumble Froo

got the ptfe the other day, gonna try doing that every couple of days for about 1.4mm. will probably... possibly... hopefully stop at 5mm.

Original_Sin

I initially had my lobes pierced at 5mm an the second set done recently at 4mm, so thats the only time any of my piercings have been tapered, i'm currently at 16mm with the first set an they have been stretched using only ptfe tape, same goes for my septum(currently 8mm) an labret(was at 8mm but due to it being a proper pain in the arse im now in the process of retiring it), only ptfe tape was used to stretch them!

mac123

Original_Sin wrote: »

I initially had my lobes pierced at 5mm an the second set done recently at 4mm

I didnt know you could get pierced that size initially! The average is just over 1mm as far as i know.
Would you recommend getting pierced bigger originally? I suppose it speeds up the process although im only gonna go to about 8mm i think.

Original_Sin

mac123 wrote: »

I didnt know you could get pierced that size initially! The average is just over 1mm as far as i know.
Would you recommend getting pierced bigger originally? I suppose it speeds up the process although im only gonna go to about 8mm i think.

If my piercer had gotten his way i woulda had my lobes pierced(not punched) at 10mm!!!

Will

biggest needle you can get is 3.2mm though, unless they stretched ya up (very bad) or cut your lobes with a scalpel (not as bad)
why didnt you get em scalpelled if you wanted to get big so quick?

amazingemmet

Wilburt wrote: »

biggest needle you can get is 3.2mm though, unless they stretched ya up (very bad) or cut your lobes with a scalpel (not as bad)
why didnt you get em scalpelled if you wanted to get big so quick?

You can get blades up to 5mm.

Will

I stand corrected
cheers emmet

Original_Sin

My 5mm lobes were done with a 4mm needle then stretched with a taper to 5mm i think and my 4mm's were deffo done wiv a needle then streched cos i made a stupid point of actually looking at the size of the fecking things then thinking 'oh this wont hurt in the slightest bit' i was wrong, very wrong! Getting the 5's didnt hurt nearly as much as getting the 4's!!!!!

Jack B. Badd

Just wondering, at what point does stretching become non-reversible? I'm thinking of getting my lobes pierced and stretch them to probably 10mm max (not massive, I know). If I decided some time down the line that I wasn't happy with stretched lobes what are the chances that they would they heal and close up?

truthinwords

It's different for everyone but most people would say around the 8mm to 10mm range. You can always get them stitched if you want to go bigger but it's probably best to assume that once you go past 10mm you've got them for life.

xtruthx

happy_feet

hey guys, im interested in streching my lobe and i dont know anything about it at all!

info anyone?

i can fit a tounge bar and piercing stud in my lobe at the same time currently, but how do i make it big enough to fit the first stretcher in?

im a total novice at this so be gentle....:D

Will

ok... only put in one piece of jewelry into one hole at a time.
to stretch you buy a larger diameter barbell or tunnels. Go to a reputable piercing studio and they will do it for you.

Read the below link a few times, and if theres anything you dont understand come back here and ask

http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Stretching

happy_feet

thanks a mill!

and i dont keep both of em in, just a mate told me thats how u do it....but i dont really trust him...lol

Kidd-o

hahaha

i asked a friend of mine and i got pretty much the same answer...

im using different diamiter nails at the mo...