How to clean a nose piercing

A nose piercing takes about a minute a day to look after. The complications almost always come from doing more than that, not less.

The routine

1. Wash your hands.
2. Spray sterile saline on the outside of the piercing. Let it sit for 30 seconds.
3. Do the inside too. A brief spray up the nostril, or hold a piece of saline-dampened paper towel against the inside for a few seconds. The flat disc rests there and lymph dries around it.
4. Pat dry with clean paper towel.
5. Twice a day. That is it.

Do not remove the jewelry, do not rotate it, and do not push the crust off with a fingernail.

What to use

Sterile saline wound wash, 0.9% sodium chloride. Check the label says only sodium chloride and water. The pressurised cans sold for wound care are ideal because the spray reaches inside the nostril without a cotton bud.

That is the whole shopping list.

What to keep away from your nose

The nose is the piercing people most often try to treat with home remedies, and it is the piercing where those remedies do the most damage.

• Alcohol and hydrogen peroxide dry and damage the healing channel.
• Tea tree oil is a strong irritant on broken skin. It is one of the most common causes of a nostril bump that will not settle.
• Antibiotic ointment traps moisture and bacteria against the wound.
• Aspirin paste has no evidence behind it and irritates.
• Cotton buds shed fibres that catch in the jewelry.
• Nasal sprays and decongestants are fine for a cold but rinse afterwards.

If you have been using any of these and have a bump, stop for two weeks before you try anything else. Very often that alone resolves it.

Working around daily life

Makeup. Foundation, concealer, powder and setting spray all end up in the channel. Apply around the piercing with a clean brush, and rinse with saline afterwards. Do the same with cleanser, moisturiser and sunscreen.

Blowing your nose. Uncomfortable for the first week and it pushes discharge into the channel. Be gentle, one nostril at a time, and rinse with saline afterwards.

Sleeping. Face-down sleeping presses the stud sideways through the tissue and is the main reason nostril piercings end up looking crooked. Sleep on your back or on the other side.

Showering. Good for it. Let warm water run over the piercing to soften crust, keep shampoo rinsed away, and finish with saline.

Colds and hay fever. Constant nose-blowing and tissue friction irritate a healing piercing. Rinse more often during a cold, and be gentle.

Septum piercings

The routine is the same, with two differences.

Aim the saline into the piercing itself, at the underside of the nose, and let it run through. A septum sits where discharge collects.

The smell is normal. Dried lymph plus the ordinary bacteria of the nose produce a distinctive odour in a healing septum, sometimes called septum funk. Twice-daily rinsing keeps it under control and it disappears once healing finishes. A foul smell combined with thick coloured discharge is a different matter and needs a doctor.

Do not flip the jewelry up and down to inspect or hide it. Every flip drags the ring through the channel. If you need it hidden, wear a retainer.

How long to keep it up

For the full healing time. A nostril piercing takes four to six months; a septum takes two to three. Both look finished long before they are, which is why changing jewelry early is the single most common way people set themselves back. See when you can change a nose piercing.

When something is wrong

A small pink bump beside the jewelry is usually an irritation bump, not an infection and not a keloid. Work out what is causing pressure or movement, fix that, and read piercing bump vs keloid.

See a doctor the same day for spreading redness, heat, thick yellow or green discharge, swelling that increases after the first week, severe pain, or fever. Leave the jewelry in unless a clinician tells you otherwise. More detail in infected nose piercing.

This article is for education only and is not medical advice. If a piercing is hot, swollen, spreading redness, oozing yellow or green discharge, or you have a fever, see a doctor today.