Alcohol, and Why it Sometimes(?) Belongs on Your Piercing

Back in 2016-ish, I wrote a blog post about using hydrogen peroxide on your piercings, and why it wasn’t a great idea (which I continue to agree with to this day). It got a lot of traction, and as a result, a lot of questions about using alcohol on your piercings. I made a part two discussing why alcohol never belongs on a piercing. Now, just about a decade later, I’m revisiting the same topic. Why? Well…

Sometimes alcohol might belong on your piercing.

Now before you reach for the tar and feathers, let me explain for a moment.

The original blog post discussed alcohol as a regular aftercare method, aka what you use to clean your piercing every day. We discussed that this was way too harsh and likely to be overly drying and damaging to your piercing. I still agree with this!  Dr Kazu Suzuki at Tower Wound Care Center in LA said, “In the wound care world, we say, ‘Don’t put anything in your wound that you wouldn’t put in your eye. Peroxide bubbles up, and it may help dislodge the debris from the wound and dissolve some crusty blood, yet it is very harsh and irritating to an open wound. The same with alcohol. Yes, it will kill some bacteria, but it also kills and irritates healthy skin and the wound bed. I suggest you do not use alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, or Betadine solution in the open wound.”

And this I still agree with. Alcohol is great at killing harmful bacteria, for say an animal wound, or stepping on something sharp out in the woods with who-knows-what bacteria now in the wound. But piercings are a wound made in a clean environment, ideally using sterilized jewelry, proper skin prep, tools, and instruments- meaning we aren’t introducing any really harmful bacteria to the wound at the time of piercing. Alcohol often just kills or damages the good bacteria that are protecting our piercing, with minimal bad bacteria to worry about. So we don’t need a harsh cleaner like alcohol.

We also discussed the way alcohol is often too harsh for healing piercings. “Beyond that, alcohol can cause severe dryness to the skin. An obvious clue that alcohol is being used on a piercing is typically the very dry, peeling, and exfoliating skin on and around the area. We already know that many alcohols are bad, even in our everyday skin care products. It’s widely suggested to avoid them in your toners, moisturizers, and masks, so why would we put it on our piercings? Its ideal to maintain a healthy balance of moisture in the skin to keep your piercing on a good path to healing.” I still agree with this statement today- alcohol is extremely drying. If someone were cleaning their piercing with this every single day for the full healing period, it would dry their skin out and cause a ton of other issues.

Coincidentally, this drying is actually why I now think alcohol might sometimes belong on your piercing.

(Now you can get the tar and feathers ready.)

I pierce in Seattle, located in the Pacific Northwest. This is an often humid, damp climate (as I am writing this, we are heading for another atmospheric river weather event, the third in recent months. The humidity in my city can reach up to and over 85%, similar humidity to that of a rainforest. It is wet in this city, and with this comes moisture irritations. These irritations occur when a piercing has a difficult time drying out. Excess moisture collects, along with the natural secretions from the piercing, and build up into irritation bumps that are often wet, shiny tissue, or bumps filled with fluid.

We most commonly see these bumps on earlobe piercings when a client has long enough hair and leaves it wet after showering. The wet hair sits around and against the piercing for 2-4 hours as the hair dries fully, and this constant recurring moisture causes these irritations. While these irritations are the most common with lobes, we also see them often with eyebrows (the T zone is an often oily, sweaty area), vertical lip piercings (it’s tough not to tongue at these, or at chapped lips, but this constant moisture can irritate), navel piercings (especially if you don’t dry them after showering or bathing!) and cheek piercings (among some of the most productive piercings, and famously known for dealing with moisture irritations.) While these issues are often universal, they are exacerbated by the humid, wet climate here in the PNW- leading to a much higher rate of moisture irritations, and sometimes much more severe moisture irritations. In fact, they are so common I have an entire blog post about them here!

Now, if you recall, we discussed one of the main negatives of alcohol is that it’s extremely drying, especially when used over time. However, when we are dealing with piercings struggling with moisture, in a humid climate, and we are unable to get things to dry up with any other methods, a product that is known for being excessively drying? Can sometimes be the answer.

The key here lies in the nuance. I’m not suggesting folks clean their piercings every day with alcohol- I think this is a terrible suggestion. I’m not saying that alcohol is a cure-all for piercing bumps- thats a lie.

I am saying that in specific instances of moisture irritations that are not improving just with general drying or a dryer aftercare approach, especially for clients living in a humid climate, using alcohol topically for a short length of time to dry things up in the area, can be an effective method of troubleshooting!

When I use this as a troubleshooting method, I have client send me regular photo updates of how things are looking, we go a few days to a week at a time with alcohol used once a day- usually after cleaning or showering (times when our piercings are likely to be the wettest) after gently drying the area to further ensure things stay dry. We check in frequently, and once the moisture irritation goes down, we discontinue the use of alcohol. It’s not part of our aftercare; it’s just a treatment for a very specific type of irritation, used under the supervision of a piercer. I do NOT think this is something you should use on your own. I think this should be used only at the advice of an experienced piercer, and under their supervision, to know when to stop using it, and to ensure it’s actually being effective.

I still think alcohol runs the risk of damaging healing tissue and destroying healthy bacteria at the piercing site, but I think it becomes a lesser of two evils when we deal with stubborn moisture. When used in a controlled manner, for a set length of time, to treat a specific issue, it’s highly effective, and that effectiveness makes the limited time use worth it. And more than that, we as piercers talk constantly about being always learning, always growing, and always open to new and better ways to work. A decade ago, I felt like there was no reality that alcohol would be safe on a healing piercing. Now, with new evidence, new experience, and new understanding, especially of the role climate can play in healing, I have changed my mind- and I’m proud to admit that!

When we get stuck in one way of working or doing things, we limit ourselves from seeing the potential in new methods, new tools, or revisiting old ones we thought could never work. I think a measure of a great piercer (or tattoo artist or scientist) is being willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence. And that’s exactly what I’m doing here.