This turned out to be way bigger than I thought so if you're just reading this for advice I suggest you only read the paragraph at the bottom with the bullet points. If not then thanks for reading and good luck for getting through it all.
At A Glance Author Tracee Contact Tracee_L@hotmail.com IAM Tracee When Three months ago Artist Myself Studio My house Location New Zealand The first time I heard about ear stretching was when I was fifteen, my nights were spent drinking and smoking with a group of friends of mixed ages with heavy metal music playing in the background and bodies strewn all over the floors in various stages of drunkenness or unconsciousness. Most nights we managed to find somebody's house whose parents had gone out for the night to have our impromptu 'parties' at, some nights we even managed to just get the parents in question to drink with us...a memorable night the night my dad drunk a bottle of rum with me I'll let you know.
Anyway back to the story, one of my friends had recently brought an acrylic stretching taper and had decided to get really tanked up on cheap vodka and get one of us to hold her down and the other to shove it through the hole already in her ear. Let me stop you here and tell you that this is NOT a good idea at all, first of all she really had no idea what she was doing and neither did I having been thrown in to the situation and only accepting because I thought it would be really 'hard core', secondly the taper was 6mm in size, way to big to be starting off with and third been drunk and attempting any sort of body modification is a recipe for failure and most likely pain once the hangover wears off.
Luckily she whimped out and snatched the taper out of my hand as soon as I touched her ear with it and threw it across the room and to my knowledge it was never found again. At the time I still didn't really understand what it meant to 'stretch you ears' and really didn't understand the pain or patience involved but I did understand that if done the consequences were that it was permanent and to get them to look beautiful and unique it had to be done right.
Over the next couple of years I got many piercing's, secretly enjoying the shock value they had but knowing that if I wanted to they could come out and I'd only be left with a tiny scar...I harboured this thought like a life line using it every time some one said but what happens when your eighty, your not going to want those piercing's then are you? But I did do all I could to find out what was involved in stretching one's ears. I didn't know anyone who had stretched ears until I was about 17 and I moved towns and started a new job and I quickly befriended these people and shot questions at them like a person fires bullets at a crazy person but they were all answered (thank you Allan) I discovered that you could used multiple types of materials to carry out the stretching job, one person in particular using the straws from McD's (good thing they come in little packages now huh) He had simply folded them up as small as possible and slid them through his ear and let go, they then popped open and stretched his ear in the process. Apparently you 'felt slight burning for one day if you did it in the morning once you got out of the shower and by that night there was no pain at all" (I don't suggest this method either)
I decided to fork out the money to buy what was needed straws really didn't seem the way to go for me. I was also informed by many people that ky was better than Vaseline, I was the other way around, but I'll say now ky is a water soluble gel which is better for your ear because if you use a petroleum based gel like Vaseline it dries out your skin and clogs the pores, not such a good idea. So I saved up the money I needed and made the trip to my local piercing store and brought a taper. It was a 3mm spiral that's jet black; I don't suggest using a spiral for your first stretch its hard grip especially when covered in Vaseline. When I was at the store I was told I should be able to get it through in 2-3 days and if it bleeds to stop and leave it alone because blood was a bad sign. I knew all this but the one thing I didn't know was that going from just a normal ear piercing done in a mall *shudder* to 3mm was a rather courageous or stupid step to take depending on what way you look at it, I'd say stupid.
So I went home and that night I sat on the couch for about 4 hours and tugged on that stubborn fucker until I was at the point of tears. I had gotten it through a little bit, deciding that was enough for the night I gave up and went to bed with a throbbing ear. When I woke up in the morning it had come out, so horribly disheartened I jumped in the shower gave my ear and taper a good clean and tried to get it through a little bit...this was when I discovered that stretching in the shower makes things a whole lot nicer, easier and less painful. Well I got it through in two days and had a little blood but not so much that I was worried. I made it a rule that I would leave it at least two weeks in between stretching but most of the time left it four weeks due to lack of money. So I brought a 6mm taper next and moved my 3mm in to my other ear, I got it in, in about 30 minutes I'm not sure how but since then I've realised that my left ear stretches a lot better than my right.
My 6mm taper was blue and white acrylic and was long with a slight curve in it, a lot better shape to stretch with. I went through fine. I did the stretch in the shower. But when I moved it on to my other ear I had some problems, I really don't know what happened but decided that it could have been partly because I had spent about 2 hours that night looking a pictures of exploded ears on bme from people who have fucked up while stretching and because my cleaning ritual had become a little erratic. So I had taken the taper out and cleaned it and there had been a lot of blood and pus in my ear so I cleaned it up with tea tree oil and cotton buds and carefully slid the taper back in. I woke up 3 hours later with a swollen ear...so swollen it had pushed the back 'O' ring off, for five life shattering minutes I thought my ear had swallowed it but, it was in my bed. So I freaked at mixed up a saline solution in a shot glass and stood in the bathroom my head cocked to once side and a shot glass pressed over the ear lobe. I kept that up for about 20 minutes cleaned it again with tea tree and sat the taper in the hole so it didn't completely close up as freaked as I was I was still stubborn enough to want to keep going with the whole stretching process. Well I finally went back to sleep and my morning the swelling had gone completely and left me thinking I'd dreamt the whole thing.
After all of that I've never had any other issues with the healing of my ears. I went from a 6mm to a bright pink acrylic 8mm taper and both those stretches went amazingly, no issues whatsoever. From 8mm to a 10mm clear acrylic taper (if you held it next to something black it went a purple colour, I had heaps of fun with that one) and then from 10mm to a 14mm blood red taper that I feel in love with at first sight. I had problems from 8 to 14 at work, they were not suitable and had to be taken out every time I was at work so for the last stretches I waited until I had stated studying again and could do it during the week since I only work the weekends.
My original plan was to stop at 6mm; I was told that was the point of no return. (I have no idea weather it is or not) but I got there and I had caught the 'fever', stretching as painful as it is was addictive and I kept going until I got to 14mm because that's when I decided that my ears had gotten the 'shape' that stretched ears have. So here I sit 4 years from when I'd discovered flesh holes oh so innocently with my beautiful and amazing ears and a growing collection of tunnels and plugs for them, they deserve it they have been through a lot.
I'd just like to give a few pointers if any body reading this is thinking of trying it.
• Be prepared to give a lot of time for the job
• Be prepared for pain
• Be prepared for the questions people will ask you
• It hurts...a lot most of the time
• Remember that having a shower first helps
• Keep up with your after care other wise bad things will happen
• Know your body and when its saying its had enough because you don't want to rip the flesh, blood is a rather bad sign
• Its addictive...really addictive
• Its permanent, and you're the only one who has to live with your body for the rest of your life so go slow, you've got time...appreciate the pain and be patient
Just a note about my aftercare, I refrained from twisting the tapers until a couple of days after I'd gotten them the whole way though, otherwise the skin that's cells are repairing keep getting shifted and die. But I made sure that they got a good clean in the shower and used tea tree oil on them about 4 times a day, if they got sore or itchy I just mixed about ½ a teaspoon of sea salt in ¼ of a cup of warm water and soaked my ear in that. I also wish I'd known this now but I'm studying natural health at the moment which includes herbs and if you even just buy some chamomile tea bags and put about 6-8 in a jar filling it with boiling water and leaving the lid on it for two hours you can use the liquid when cleaning them and if they get sore use the tea bags by lying them on the earlobe. It has an astringent affect on the skin and helps to heal the wound. If the tea bags aren't working you can buy the chamomile tincture from any health store for a relatively low cost, you just put a few drops in some water and apply that to the ear like a compress.
So happy stretching, sorry this was so long if you made it though well freakin' done and remember love your mod's they are a part of you, probably a big part.