This is a piercing/modification that splits the nation. Some
people love the look of ear stretching whereas others completely despise it.
Personally, I like the way it looks, obviously, or else I wouldn’t have done
it. I don’t mind stretched ears as long as they aren’t too big. When people
start getting dangly earlobes I find that a step too far. My mum hates it, but
then nearly everyone I’ve spoken too with stretched ears had a mother who found
it repulsive!
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a professional piercest/ ear
stretcher/ whatever, I’m just letting people know how I stretched my ear and my
personal experience of it. I read up so much online before I did it and decided
to order acrylic stretchers in all sizes up to 5mm from www.arka-shop.co.uk . I
understand that stainless steel stretchers are better for your ear at keeping
out infections but acrylic ones were so much cheaper, and I use a steel tunnel
now to (hopefully) keep out infection
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I got my second lobe pierced earlier this year with the
intention of stretching it. I told this to the lady in the piercing shop and I
think she may have put an earring with a thicker stem in my ear. I left it to
heal for over 2 months and although it had healed mainly healed, I still think
I should have left it even longer, but I just got bored of waiting and wanted
to stretch my ear over the summer.
1.6mm
I have no picture of this one as I’ve lent it to a friend
but its basically teeny. I didn’t do anything to prepare it, I just basically
put it halfway through my ear, left it there until it wasn’t throbbing anymore
and kept pushing it in until it was fully in, it wasn’t as painful as I
expected it to be, it was definitely a bearable pain.
l - r: 2mm, 3mm, 4mm.
2mm
I left the 1.6 in for 2 days, which isn’t long I know,
but the difference in sizes between the 1.6 and 2 is bearly noticeable, so I
just went ahead and put the 2 in, now this one was quite painful and I again
put it in as far as possible until it hurt, and just kept pushing it through
more when it stopped hurting. All-in-all it took me about 40 mins to get it
fully through.
3mm+4mm
These again hurt but not awfully, I left the 2 in for
about a week until I went up to a 3, and left the 3 in for roughly a week
before moving to a 4 but it wasn’t too hard to push in I just used the same
technique. For the 1.6mm, 2mm, 3mm and
4mm I used a tapered stretcher.
5mm
This was when it got confusing for me, for this I used a
‘horn’ stretcher, which didn’t have little elastic bands on to hold it in my
ear. I again put the 5 in after about a week of having the 4 in, and it was
easy to put in my ear, I preferred using the horn shape as it was a lot easier
to push in my ear and I could even sleep on that ear when it was in. but after
about 4 days of having it in, to cut a long story short it fell out on my way
home from work and I lost it. So I had to go back down to a 3 (as my brother
was using my 4) then go out and buy a new 5 so my brother could use that and I
could go up to a 4 blah blah blah. It was basically a very annoying week for me
as I’d got so far and had to go back down again, my ear was infected at this
point so it was probably for the best anyway.
My now stretched ear with a 5mm tunnel in
5mm Tunnel
The majority of the way through I did have an infection,
most likely because I didn’t leave my ear piercing to heal long enough, but I
just kept moving up saying to myself it would heal when I put a stainless steel
tunnel through my ear, and so far its been ok and I’ve had it in for a few
weeks now. If you are thinking about stretching but are too scared of it
hurting I would definitely suggest it! It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as I was
expecting it to and its worth it in the end. I wouldn’t suggest going over 8mm
as they say your ear wont go back to normal if you do, however I know someone
who got up to 15mm and it still went back to normal as they moved up extremely
slow, so that just proves.. Slow and steady wins the race! Haha hope you
enjoyed thanks for reading xxx
