How to Clean Tongue Piercing Jewelry

Keep your tongue piercing healthy by disinfecting your piercing jewelry.

To reduce the risk of infection, it's vital to properly care for and clean your tongue piercing and jewelry. It's not advisable to remove or change your tongue jewelry while your piercing is still healing, but when you are ready to wear new tongue jewelry, it's important to thoroughly clean and disinfect it. Likewise, when cleaning a healed tongue piercing, remove the jewelry from your tongue to clean it.

Things You'll Need

• Antibacterial soap

Instructions

1. Clean your hands thoroughly with warm water and antibacterial soap. Never touch a piercing or handle piercing jewelry with unwashed hands.

2. Remove the tongue piercing from your mouth. Unscrew the ball from the end of the barbell jewelry and pull the barbell out of the piercing.

3. Fill a sink halfway with warm water. Ensure the sink is plugged so your tongue jewelry does not slip into the drain.

4. Squeeze one or two pumps of a mild antibacterial liquid hand-soap onto your fingers. Only use soap with no added perfumes or moisturizing properties.

5. Submerge the tongue jewelry into the water. Take it out of the water and rub it thoroughly with your soapy fingers. Wash the barbell and screw-on ball for around three minutes.

6. Remove the plug from the sink and allow the soapy water to drain. Plug the sink again and run the tongue jewelry under warm water. Rinse thoroughly to ensure no soap remains.

7. Clean your tongue piercing as instructed by your body piercing professional. Insert the jewelry back into your tongue and tightly screw the ball onto the barbell.

Tips & Warnings

• Change and clean jewelry only after your tongue piercing has healed. This typically takes four weeks.

References

• Montana Body Art, Inc.: Jewelry Cleaning Info
• Palo Alto Medical Foundation: Piercing

Resources

• The Cleveland Clinic: Mouth Jewelry, Oral Piercings and Your Health