Stretching (body piercing)

Stretching, in the context of body piercing, is the deliberate expansion of a healed piercing for the purpose of wearing certain types of jewelry. Ear piercings are the most commonly stretched piercings, with nasal septum piercings, tongue piercings and lip piercings/lip plates following close behind. While all piercings can be stretched to some degree, cartilage piercings are usually more difficult to stretch and more likely to form hypertrophic scars if stretched quickly. Dermal punching is generally the preferred method for accommodating larger jewelry in cartilage piercings.

Stretching is usually done in small increments to minimize the potential for damaging the healed fistula or creating scar tissue. In North America, most stretching methods go up by a single even-sized gauge increment at a time. 00g, or 10 mm, is considered "the point of no return" where anything 10 mm and up will not close to a standard piercing size, while 9 and under will. In Europe and most of the rest of the world, jewelry is metric, but the increments between standard sizes are similar. See the article: Body jewelry sizes.

There are few health issues directly related to stretching piercings. Most stretching methods do not create a wound, unless done too quickly. If an individual's skin elasticity and vascularity allow, most piercings can be stretched far beyond their initial size. Anywhere Above 00g or 10mm is normally given as the "point of no return" for earlobe piercings, as over this size there is a significant risk that the hole will never shrink back to the size of the original piercing. Many variables affect whether or not a stretched piercing will return to its original size, such as the length of time taken to stretch and the amount of time the piercing is fully healed at a particular size. However, everyone's ears are unique to themselves as some ears will not heal back from a 2g while some will heal from a 00g. To help with this process, rubbing vitamin E oil on the stretched ears will help keep them open as well as healthy to the point of pushing the point of no return further than the normal time frame.

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