In the life of most owners of punctures on different parts of the body, there are moments when they want to hide the piercing as reliably as possible. Sometimes this is a way to avoid criticism of conservative people in the environment; sometimes, it is a safety issue.
This article will talk about how to make your piercing invisible using retainers and other techniques. Our advice will be helpful both to those who have already made a puncture for themselves and those who reflect on this and doubt whether it will be possible to hide the jewellery from prying eyes at the right moments.
Why you might need to hide punctures
It would seem, why would anyone care about the question of how to disguise a piercing? Punctures are made to wear jewellery. Isn’t it strange to first pierce something for yourself, then puzzle over how to hide the piercing? This desire is quite natural in the following situations:
- You will have a short meeting with a significant person of conservative views – your grandmother, for example.
- You are planning to engage in physical activity that could cause injury due to the puncture. A simple example is contact martial arts, in which a piece of jewellery can catch on a partner’s clothing or part of the body.
- You need to appear before people with traditional views and defend your point of view before them – for example, defend a project and get a grant or testify in court.
- In your work or school, non-standard ways of decorating your body are frowned upon.
- That being said, there are times when you shouldn’t try to hide the piercing. Better to give up jewellery altogether – or reconsider your lifestyle if you don’t want to part with your favourite earring.
- You are going to meet people who will then become a part of your life. This could be, for example, the parents of your fiance or fiancee.
- You plan to constantly play sports, which creates the risk of injury to the puncture site. It is better to choose another type of activity or take out the decoration and fill up the hole.
- You are under 18 years old, and you want to make a puncture in secret from your family. To begin with, parents will still know, no matter how hard you try to hide your piercings from them. A fresh puncture is often accompanied by oedema and discharge of ichor, noticeable with the naked eye. Some types of holes (for example, tongue piercings) are complicated to hide from parents: in the early days, you will speak differently. Mom and Dad will notice, and they will have three reasons to be angry with you.
The very fact of the puncture, your deception and the risk to which you exposed your health. The truth is that most professional piercers work with minors only in the presence of parents and after their written consent. Only a self-taught beginner piercer at home will agree to pierce your nose or tongue without the coveted piece of paper. And this can lead to infections and complications, down to the most tragic. Therefore, it is better to do everything with parental consent or wait until the age of majority.
And if you temporarily remove the earring?
In this case, there are three risk factors
- Some punctures can heal phenomenally quickly (for example, in the tongue). In addition, the rate of overgrowth is individual; in some people, the processes proceed many times faster. If you take off the jewellery, then forget to put it on, go to bed, wake up, and then remember about the earring towards the evening of the next day, then the chance of partial overgrowth will be pretty high. This is especially true for holes that are less than six months old.
- In some parts of the body, It is contraindicated to constantly take off and put on jewellery in some parts of the body: this causes microtraumas to cause infection.
- Sometimes it can be challenging to put the earring back on (for example, in the eyebrow or the navel). If you do this often, microtrauma is inevitable.
Therefore, unlike the classic earlobe piercing, all other types do not imply that you will take off and put on earrings several times a day.
Retainers – invisible piercing jewellery
There is an easy way to disguise your piercing by using retainers. These are inconspicuous jewellery of transparent or beige colour, almost invisible to outsiders. They allow to keep the hole from overgrowing and at the same time do not attract the attention of others. Retainers are made of PTFE, Bioflex, bioplast, acrylic and are very cheap. Below we will tell you what types of retainers are suitable for different types of punctures.
Rod or bar
Straight decoration with removable beads. Suitable to hide piercings of the tongue, nipples, bridge of the nose, as well as some types of intimate punctures.
Labret
A rod with a flat, smooth disc on one side. It helps hide piercings such as nose and lip piercings.
Nostril
Nostril (“snail”) is a piece of specialized jewellery for nose wing piercing, with an anatomically curved shape, without removable elements.
Banana
This retainer looks like a slightly curved barbell, and it can be used to hide the piercing of the frenum under the upper lip, which is called a smile, a similar piercing of the frenum of the lower lip – anti-smile, as well as holes in the navel and eyebrow.
Circular
The circular (“horseshoe”) looks like an incompletely closed ring with balls at the edges. Typically, this shaped earring is used to hide a septum – a nasal septum piercing – in this case, you can use a titanium circular, simply turning it over with the balls inward.
You can also pick up a circular without balls – a U-shaped decoration, a special retainer for the septum.
Now you know that those who want to mask their punctures use retainers. This is an affordable and safe way to hide your body modification temporarily. The main thing is to purchase retainers only after consulting with the puncturer. He will help you choose the size and shape, teach you how to change the jewellery to a retainer and back correctly.
