How to Clean Lip Piercings

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Tristan McCauley from Lucky Seven Tatoo and I'm going to tell you how to clean a lip ring. The first thing you want to do is choose an antibacterial soap or antimicrobial soap on the outside. Just lather it up in your hand, take a Q-tip while pushing with your tongue on the inside and go around the piercing with a Q-tip and get any of the buildup off of it and it kind of looks like when you have sleep in your eyes, that will be around the outside of it and what that soap does is break up any kind of bacteria and helps to dissipate any build up on the outside. Then on the inside after you eat, drink or smoke for the first four to six weeks you want to rinse with an alcohol free mouth wash. You want to avoid spicy foods because that can also irritate the piercing and you want to avoid drinking alcohol, beer especially because the hops in the beer can cause an infection. If you have hoop which he does not but you want to kind of turn it when you clean it going kind of back and forth and getting that build up off of it, just keep it really clean, keep it nice. When you wake up in the morning and brush your teeth kind of go around it with a toothbrush to break up any plaque on the inside. Just be very gentle with it and you should be alright and that is how you clean a lip piercing."