I was recently asked what it meant to be told that your anatomy is not suited for a certain piercing. This question is not widely answered, so I thought it would be a good topic to do a short blog post about!
Piercings need to be performed through an adequate amount of skin. If the piercing is too close to the edge of the ear, or too close to the surface (as with a belly piercing) the body will reject the piercing and push the jewelry out of the body as it heals itself.
Everyone's ear & body structure varies greatly, so some of you may not have enough space in certain places to allow for a certain piercing to be placed there. The most common example of the is with the industrial piercing. If you don't have a "lip" on your ear on either side where the bar would go through, you do not have the correct anatomy to be able to get the industrial piercing safely without future issues or the piercing rejecting. Another common piercing some people don't have the correct anatomy for is the daith. If your daith does not stick out far enough to safely perform the piercing, your piercer should tell you that you do not have the correct anatomy to get that piercing.
This is not a bad thing!! It is actually very responsible of a piercer to tell you no to a certain piercing due to your anatomy versus just giving you the piercing you want in a way that may be harmful to your health so they can collect your money!
In most cases, there are ways around not having the correct anatomy. You can create a faux industrial by getting a helix & forward helix piercing and connecting them with a cute chain! Or, you can simulate the look of a rook piercing with a faux rook- a labret placed just above where the usual rook piercing would go. Similarly, you can create the effect of a snug piercing with two different piercings with labrets in.
Don't be discouraged if you're told you don't have the correct anatomy, and don't simply find a piercer that will perform the piercing anyway! If you are told that your anatomy doesn't suit a certain piercing, ask your piercer or visit our instagram page to ask for alternative methods 😊 And remember, your piercer is not trying to be mean- they are looking our for your best interest!
Until next time,
Kourtney ❤️
5 comments
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I wish I had been told this. I got an industrial and do not actually have enough of a curl at the front of my ear for it so, while it healed, it was slowly migrating. Now I have a funky scar :/
I’ve had much better luck with piercers being much more upfront with what they will or won’t do since then (not sure if I’m better at finding them, or if there are just more who take pride in the craft).
Being told that you don’t have the anatomy for a certain piercing probably hurts more than getting that piercing would have lol. But now I am really glad that my piercer was honest and told me I don’t have enough room for a triple forward helix, most likely complicating healing. So now I have a nicely healed double forward helix, which is way better than struggling or losing a piercing after all due to lack of correct anatomy. And often, you can also get your desired look with certain jewelry, for me that is a top piece with a dangling piece in my lower forward healing piercing.
I once read somewhere that a rule of thumb for ear piercings is that, when you’re able to properly grip that part of your ear with you finger and thumb, you probably can get that part pierced :)
Being told that you don’t have the anatomy for a certain piercing probably hurts more than getting that piercing would have lol. But now I am really glad that my piercer was honest and told me I don’t have enough room for a triple forward helix, most likely complicating healing. So now I have a nicely healed double forward helix, which is way better than struggling or losing a piercing after all due to lack of correct anatomy. And often, you can also get your desired look with certain jewelry, for me that is a top piece with a dangling piece in my lower forward healing piercing.
I once read somewhere that a rule of thumb for ear piercings is that, when you’re able to properly grip that part of your ear with you finger and thumb, you probably can get that part pierced :)
Thank you for this post! I had my heart set on getting the daith piercing but was told by my piercer that my anatomy wouldn’t suit it, which broke my heart. Yet I couldn’t find any valid explanation to what she had told me when Googling later that day. I still plan to get another opinion from my other piercer, though, because I just want the daith so badly.