Ear piercing is the most commonly practiced body piercing. It is meant for wearing beautiful earrings. It is more frequent in women. However, now-a-days, it has become very popular in men too. The ear piercing can be performed on different sites. Some the common sites for ear piercing are earlobes, cartilage, industrial, tragus, anti-tragus, conch, rook, snug, daith and helix.

The earlobe piercing is the most common type of ear piercing. It involves a single hole at the center of each earlobe. The piercing is done with the piercing gun. This method is generally used for the non-professional piercers. But, according to the professional piercers, the piercing guns should not be used as the guns can’t be completely sterilized. It is recommended to perform the piercing with a sterilized needle. The earlobe piercing requires 4 to 6 weeks for complete healing.

The modification done in the pierced earlobes is known as the gauging or stretching. Most of the time, the ears are pierced using the 18 or 20 gauge needle. Due to elasticity of the skin, the earlobes can be stretched after some time to hold the 6 or 4 gauge jewelry. The stretching or gauging is done by upgrading the size of the jewelry. Then the hole is stretched enough to fit the bigger earrings.

A standard cartilage piercing is the second most commonly practiced ear piercing. It takes more time for complete healing as compare to earlobes piercings. It requires about 8-12 weeks for total healing. As there is limited blood supple, this area never heals properly in some cases.

The industrial or scaffold piercing involves two holes that are connected by a long barbell. It is performed through the cartilage on the upper ear. If two or more industrial piercings are done, then it is preferred as the ear cage. The healing time is from 3 months to 1 year.

The tragus piercing is very popular that involves the thick oval of cartilage. It takes about 8-16 weeks for initial healing and about one year for complete healing. The anti-tragus piercing is done at opposite place of the tragus just above the ear lobe. A conch piercing is performed in the large area of the cartilage just above the earlobes and the anti-tragus on the inner area.

A rook is piercing is done on the thick fold of the cartilage present on the anti-helix above the tragus. The helix piercing involves the piercing through the cartilage on the entire rim of the ear. The snug piercing is done on the outer brim on the inner cartilage just above the anti-tragus. The daith piercing is performed between the rook and the ear canal.

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