In Piercing, Sometimes the Goal is Healed, Rather than Perfection

As a piercer, when I do a piercing, it’s with a singular goal in mind. I want it to heal. I want it to be a healthy, happy, healed piercing. And the journey there is very rarely a simple one. For some lucky clients, it may be, but for many it’s a bit of a bumpy road (ha ha). For those, it’s a stressful process. During the period where a piercing is healing, all sorts of things can occur, from irritation bumps to slight shifts in placement to losing jewelry to swelling to any number of things that occur as we heal. This is a known factor, and many years ago, it was accepted by anyone seeking a piercing that it would be a journey, a process, and an experence, as much as an end result.

However, recently I have seen quite the uptick in clients who are obsessed with the healing process and with ensuring they have a “perfect” piercing. I’d like to share a few stories of recent interactions I had (shared with client consent.)

Mary came to see me about some nipple piercings she’s had for a few years. They were pierced elsewhere, and a few months into healing, one was snagged badly at work, and slightly torn. It stabilized and recovered, and healed just fine, although a bit shallower than the other. She recently got some new expensive custom jewelry and posted online to celebrate. Comments asked about the difference in depth between the piercings, and she came to see me for what could be done to fix it. These were years old, healed, healthy, happy piercings, and one of them happened to be about 2mm more shallow than the other.

I advised her to keep them, that a 2mm difference was not noticeable to the vast majority, and the difficulty of re-piercing and the risk of it migrating right back to the same spot was not small. The piercings were there. They were healthy. They healed. That's what mattered!

I saw a client for some forward-facing nostrils, who already had two sets of paired nostrils, lows and highs. The highs, as high nostrils go, were a bitch to heal. 2ish years of on and off irritation bumps, downsizing, upsizing, and even needing to put a regular earring in to keep things open for a few days on vacation after jeweley was snagged out. After all of this, one of them had healed at a slightly different angle than the other. After much agonizing and back and forth with the piercer, this client decided to keep them- they didn’t want to deal with 2 years of hell and healing again to change one piercing by maybe 10 degrees. But, occassionally, the fact that opne is at a slightly different angle really bothers them. Not becuase of how it looks, but becuase they worry about how others perceve them.

And I saw Shawn about his septum. Pierced and healed for 25 years, after seeing some posts on Reddit, he became insecure it wasn’t correctly pierced. ‘It should be closer to the tip of my nose, according to the internet!’ When I looked, I could see that maybe there was room for things to go 1-2mm further forward. But that was about it. I asked him if it ever bothered him for the last 25 years. He said no, it was just in reading online about how a septum should be that he became insecure about his.

Things happen with piercings. Things can get caught or snagged. Things can migrate, things can shift. Our body is doing something miraculous in healing a wound like a piercing, and during that healing process, all sorts of things can occur. But if everything heals? If everything feels comfortable and happy, and you can wear all the jewelry you want and do everything you want with your piercing and you dont have pain or discomfort or issues….that’s pretty incredible! Does it have to be "perfect”? What even is perfect? To me, Shawn's beautiful healed septum that had served him well for 25 years was pretty perfect. Mary’s nipples that healed despite the trauma that occurred, and have lasted her years, is incredibly impressive. And my client, who healed their high nostrils despite all odds is a feat to be celebrated.

Now to be clear, in all these instances, things were only slightly off. If let's say you had paired nostrils and one migrated an extremely noticeable amount, and the client was insecure about it and unhappy…yes, my advice would be to remove and redo it. But what I’m increasingly seeing is clients where something is a singular hair off from perfect, feeling like they have a terrible, failed piercing. Meanwhile, it takes me a few minutes of assessing things to even notice the issue in the first place. And in all of these instances, the piercings were well healed, healthy, and happy.

Notice that at the start of this blog, I said my goal as a piercer is for piercings to heal. Did I say it was for them to be perfect? No. Now, I’m still quite the perfectionist. I’m going to spend ages marking, measuring, checking, and double-checking before I pierce. But what happens in the weeks and months that follow, I can’t control with the same level of perfectionism. And neither can my clients. Sometimes things shift. Sometimes things migrate. Sometimes things get caught or snagged or tear or otherwise have a complication. And our body heals, despite this.

What does it look like for us to accept healing as the goal, over perfection? What does it look like to appreciate the miracle of our body healing, creating a space for us to adorn with jewelry, even if that space is maybe only 95% perfect?

I’m someone with psoriasis, an autoimmune skin condition that affects my healing. It’s much easier for my piercings to migrate than for the average person. I’m writing this blog post with a crooked tragus piercing (which I still love), uneven nostrils (which I have a whole video about here), and a cheek piercing that still flares up from time to time. And I wouldn’t trade that for the world. I have such a hard time healing that once things finally settle down on my body, that alone is a small miracle. Take for example, my tragus. The initial piercing was close to perfect, but not 100%. In the following months, I fought with irritation bumps and psoriasis flares around it. After almost 2 years, it settled down, but for sure, a bit crooked. Likely, the already very slight off-angle became more off through the irritation and the flares. But it’s perfectly healed now. I can take it in and out without issues, wear small and large jewelry, and it rests flat. No one would ever really be able to tell the angle was slightly off. Would it be worth it for me to repierce it and go through all that healing and struggle? Absolutely not. The chances of it fully migrating or rejecting next time would be so high. And I franky don’t want to deal with all that effort and discomfort and healing and responsibility for a change to an angle that is not really going to make a visual difference in how the piercing looks to others on a daily basis. My goal is healed and healthy….not perfection.

And this isn’t to say we shouldn’t strive for perfection! We should be meticulous in our marking, mindful in our techniques, and clients should be diligent with their aftercare. But you know what? Shit happens. Sometimes things go sideways. And rather than obsess over perfection and lose sleep over a single millimeter….if your piercing is healed. If it’s healthy. If it looks good from most angles and wears the jewelry you want, and the only thing off about it is something only you see in the mirror from certain angles, or only something random people on the internet think matters….screw it! And screw them.

Reddit would probably tell me to take my tragus out and have it redone. But that would absolutely not be the best option that works for me and my body. And the fact that it has healed and is healthy is a testament to defying the odds with my conditions and healing anyway. Plus, I love the piercing. And at the end of the day, that's what matters. That you love your piercing. Others' opinions don’t.

Perfection is nice. But my goal is healed, healthy, happy piercings. And perhaps this blog post can help you find your own goals for your piercings, whatever that looks like.