finally here's my post about streching your ears, what you need, how to do it and how to care for your ears afterwards. so first of all, here's what you need:
TAPERS: these are used to widen the hole in your ear. the one's on the picture are cone-shaped acrylic tapers, but you can also use spirals. tapers come in different materials, acrylic, steal, organic.. - i would recommend using acrylic ones, they're cheapest and since you wouldn't wear them anymore anyway you shouldn't waste your money on that. IMPORTANT: don't skip sizes with the tapers! you should go in tiny steps like 2,3,4,5,6mm, then you can go on in bigger steps like 8,10mm.. if you skip sizes it first of all will hurt, your ears are going to bleed and you can even risk a blow out, wich doesn't look nice at all, so be patient for the health of your ear!
PLUGS/TUNNELS: after you've streched your ear with the taper you should (after several hours) put a plug or tunnel into your ear. if you keep the taper in over night or for a long time it's weight and size won't leat your ear heal properly because it'll always be in a move. for the small size of 2mm you can use a normal piercing ring, but be careful to buy one with a big diameter, you ear's goingt to be a little bit thicker in the first days. for all the bigger sizes i recommend simple acrylic plugs with o-rings or unscrewable plugs or tunnels. don't try to put in double-flared ones, they won't fit into your ear until 3-4 weeks after streching! i also wouldn't reccomend to change the plug you put in after streching in the first two days so your ear can heal better, after that you should take it out at least every day to clean it, after your ear is fully healed you can leave the plug in there for a longer time.
DESINFECTANT: before you strech you should fist desinfect your hands, then the taper. the hand-desinfectant you can find in every drugstore, for your ears i would recommend 'octisept' (that's at least what it is called here in germany), you can find it in your pharmacy.
CREAM: to make the taper go into your ear you should use some simple body milk or vanishing cream
now here's the step by step instructions how to strech your ear:
1. desinfect your hands
2. desinfect the taper
3. put some cream onto the taper
4. put some cream on your ear (this is also good to speed up the blood circulation and the healing process, like a massage)
5. slowly put the taper into your ear. don't force anything, just put it in as far as it goes, if it hurts too much, stop. leave it in for several minutes, then go on. if you feel you won't get it through just put it back out and wait another week. between the single steps i recommend to wait about 4 weeks, depending on how fast you're ear heals you can also try to strech after maybe 3 weeks, but never earlier! i expirienced that the taper goes in a lot easier and not as painful if you wait for a longer time! so be patient, i know it's hard.
6. put the o-rings onto the taper to avoid losing it. leave a little space between the o-ring and your ear to let it breathe.
7. after several hours your ear should be a little bit calmed and you can put it a plug or tunnel. first desinfect (this is very important to prevent your ear from getting infected!)
8. take the o-rings off your taper and fit the plug exactly onto the top of the taper. push it through your ear slowly, pushing the taper out at the same time. if you fail, just put the taper back in and try again, or try to put the plug into your ear without the taper, although the fist way might be easier!
9. screw your tunnel or put the o-rings on your alcrylic plugs and let them in for about two or three days, until your ear isn't as thick anymore. then put it out, clean it, desinfect it and put it back in. wait four weeks and then go on with the next step!
here you can see how i storage my plugs, tunnels and tapers. those transparent boxes you can get in local craft stores or DIY-stores.
how to put in double-flared silikone tunnels: take the tunnel and fold it in your hand, put it into your ear like that, if you let lose it will turn back into it's previous shape!
GENERAL ADVISES:
1. BE PATIENT! don't go on with streching too fast!
2. desinfect every tunnel or plug you buy very carefully, especially if you buy them from a street market or things like that!
3. i take my tunnels out everytime i take a shower. in the shower i also clean my hole and before i put the tunnel back in i desinfect it every single time. (i just don't use the hand-desinfectant that often anymore..)
4. for a very healthy ear you should wear organic plugs or tunnels (right picture), like wooden ones, your ear will be able to breathe a lot better than with the steal, silicone or acrylic plugs! you will even recognize it because the skin colour inside your hole will be the same as the one outside, with non-organic ones it will be a light pink.
5. if you want to strech both of your ears you don't need to buy two of every taper, just strech the one ear first to 2, after it healed strech this ear to 3, the other one to 2... because you wouldn't be able to wear the tapers, as well as the small plugs and tunnels anything else would just be a waste of money!
6. here, here and here are some nice videos about streching on youtube!
if you have any questions about streching, just ask me in the comment-box, i'll answer everything! i hope i could help you a little bit and now have fun with streching, but always be patient! (your skin is not like rubber band at all!)
since i have seen a lot of ying-yang-prints around tumblr and lookbook lately and since i really like the print i decided to turn one of my levi's high waisted cut off shorts into a pretty ying-yang-shorts. the tutorial for how to sew a piece of cloth onto denim shorts you can find in my DIY american flag shorts-post, this works just for any kind of cloth you have! so here's the result:
so i hope i can post an outfit-post with this one soon, but by now i'm just mostly wearing bikinis, swimsuits and swimshorts all the time, it's finally hot and sunny here and i spend most of my time at the lake -wonderful. and another wonderful thing: one of the universities i sent a portfolio to invited me to a qualifying examination! if i pass, i'll be studying interior design there in october! :D
