Gauge

Choosing the gauge for your piercing all depends on the size in which you want to stretch your ear hole to. With anything ranging from 8mm to 25mm, stretching your ear or any other piercing can be very painful, but they look awesome in the end, so it’s well worth it! This style of jewellery is another way in which you can stretch your original piercing hole with something a little more attractive than a simple plug or tunnel. If you are finding it painful to stretch your ear then it is recommended that you shower or rub a warm cloth on your lobes just to free the skin a little, but you can also use various solutions such as Vitamin E oil. Various piercing jewellery can be used to achieve larger flesh holes, but it is highly advised that you go up in small sizes for example from an 18ga to 16ga. If you are planning on increasing the size of the gauge of your piercing, or stretching your ear further, here is a simple chart with the conversions you may need to pick the correct size...

Gauge / Thicknes Conversions			Diameter Conversions		Length Conversions
Gauge	Millimeters	Inches	Millimeters	Inches	Millimeters	Inches
18g	1.0mm	0.040"	10.0mm	0.400"	6.0mm	0.236"
16g	1.2mm	0.047"	12.0mm	0.472"	8.0mm	0.314"
14g	1.6mm	0.062"	14.0mm	0.551"	10.0mm	0.400"
12g	2.0mm	0.078"	16.0mm	0.630"	11.0mm	0.433"
10g	2.5mm	0.098"	18.0mm	0.708"	12.0mm	0.472"
8g	3.0mm	0.118"	20.0mm	0.787"	14.0mm	0.551"
6g	4.0mm	0.157"	22.0mm	0.866"	16.0mm	0.630"
4g	5.0mm	0.196"	24.0mm	0.944"	18.0mm	0.708"
2g	6.0mm	0.236"	26.0mm	1.023"	19.0mm	0.748"
0g	8.0mm	0.314"	28.0mm	1.102"	20.0mm	0.787"
00g	10.0mm	0.400"	30.0mm	1.181"	22.0mm	0.866"

When inserting a large piece of piercing jewellery it is very important that you don’t continue to push the jewellery in if it feels like a struggle. If this occurs then proceed to rub Vitamin E oil or a warm cloth on your lobes, this should make stretching your ear much less painful, however this isn’t numbing cream, you will still feel it! There is a wide collection of gauge piercing jewellery on the market, so your piercing can look stylish whatever size you decide to stretch your ear to! It is not only when stretching your ear the gauge of a piercing is important, but every single piece of piercing jewellery will have a gauge, some are just a lot smaller than others. The gauge of a piercing is always measured by with of the bar, so with anything from barbells to tragus piercing jewellery you can find many different gauge sizes.

Tips

When stretching your ear you should never feel unbearable pain, if this is the case it could mean you are trying to move up sizes too fast. Relax and move down a size, the larger ones aren't going to disappear, it may just take you a little longer to get there!
Aftercare for stretching: To sooth the new piercing, you will need sea salt soaks with hot water; this will prevent any infection and take the pain away if there is any and should be carried out for 5 minutes on each lobe.