Measuring piercing jewelry remains a mostly elusive task- most people don't even know that there are so many piercing jewelry sizes until they begin to shop online for jewelry but don't know which size to get!
The most important aspect of piercing jewelry sizing is the gauge.
The gauge refers to the thickness of the metal that goes into the piercing hole itself. The gauge of any piercing is determined by the size needle your piercer chooses to use to perform the piercing. Usually, each piercer has a specific gauge they use for each piercing, making it easy to call your piercer and ask what gauge they used for your piercing! 😉 Gauge is a bit decieving- the higher the gauge, the thinner the bar. 14G is larger than 16G, 16G is larger than 18G, and so on. You can always use smaller gauge jewelry in a piercing that was done with a large gauge, but keep in mind that if you leave the jewelry in for a while the piercing will shrink to that new gauge size. It is also possible to increase the gauge of any piercing and you can learn about that in this blog.
For hoops sizing, you'll be looking at the diameter.
As shown here it is the distance from one side of the hoops to the other, on the inside. This distance is determined by your ear's size, the piercings location and distance from the edge of the ear. Your piercer can tell you this size also, or you can easily measure existing jewelry with a ruler in millimeters 😊
The last component to measuring body jewelry is length!
Length is measured from the inside of the ends. In other words, you're measuring the length of the bar, excluding the removable ends. You will need to know the length of your jewelry to purchase any new labrets, barbells, or other studs. It is important that you don't have a bunch of extra length in your jewelry as it heals so that there is less of a chance for the jewelry to get caught on anything and disrupt the healing process. You can measure the length you need at home using a ruler in millimeters as well!
I hope that after reading this blog you are confident to measure and order the perfect jewelry for all your piercings ✨
Until next week,
Kourtney 💕