Piercing aftercare products: what to buy, what to skip and how to read the label

A healing piercing needs one product: sterile saline, with only sodium chloride and water on the label. Almost everything else sold as piercing aftercare is optional at best and harmful at worst.

This page covers how to read a label, how the common products stack up, and why an old piece of advice, the home-made sea salt soak, has been dropped by the people who used to give it.

The one product you need

The Association of Professional Piercers (APP) advises spraying a healing piercing with sterile saline wound wash. The ingredient list should show 0.9% sodium chloride as the only ingredient, and purified water is sometimes listed as well. That is the whole formula. The aftercare guide covers the routine: wash your hands, spray, dry with clean disposable gauze, twice a day.

How to read the label

Turn the can around and check four things:

• Sodium chloride 0.9% and water, nothing else. No fragrance, no essential oils, no “soothing” botanicals.
• Sterile. It should be sealed, and stay sealed until you use it.
• No preservatives or medication. NeilMed makes the point directly, saying solutions for piercing aftercare should avoid preservatives that might harm a healing piercing.
• No claims that it kills germs. An antiseptic is a different product with a different job.

Products compared

NeilMed, specifically

NeilMed Piercing Aftercare is the product people search for most, so it is worth saying exactly what its maker claims.

• Ingredients: pharmaceutical-grade water and sodium chloride.
• Preservatives: none. The maker describes it as free from preservatives.
• Format: a fine mist can, using bag-on-valve technology that the maker says keeps the contents sterile and lets it spray upside down.
• Sizes: a 177 mL bottle, and a 75 mL travel size that the maker describes as TSA-compliant for carry-on flights.

That matches the APP label test. It does not make NeilMed the only good choice: any sterile saline that passes the same test does the same job. There are no affiliate links on this page.

The sea salt soak: the advice changed

For years the standard advice was to dissolve sea salt in warm water and soak. The APP has dropped it. Its current guidance says mixing your own sea salt solution is no longer a suggested practice, because the mixture commonly ends up far too salty and strong, which can over-dry the piercing.

Advice elsewhere has not caught up everywhere. The NHS’s page on infected piercings still says to use warm, salty water to soften crusting. Sterile saline comes at the right strength every time, which is the whole point of buying it.

What else is worth having

• Clean, disposable gauze for drying. The APP says cloth towels should be avoided because they can harbor bacteria and snag on jewelry.
• A travel pillow, for ear cartilage piercings. The APP says sleeping directly on a healing cartilage piercing can cause irritation and even shift its angle, and suggests placing a travel pillow on top of your pillow and putting your ear in the opening.
• A waterproof transparent film dressing, if you want to protect a piercing in water. The APP says these are available at most pharmacies and are ideal for nipple, navel and surface piercings. See swimming with a new piercing.

That is the full list. A piercing does not need a kit, a serum or a subscription.

When a product is the problem

If a bump will not settle, look at what has been on or near the piercing. The APP advises avoiding alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, antibacterial soaps, iodine, harsh products and ointments, so stopping anything on that list is the obvious first step. Piercing bumps explains what to do next.

A studio’s aftercare advice is a clue

The APP lists outdated aftercare, such as antibacterial soap or ointment, as a red flag when you are choosing a studio. How to choose a piercer has the rest of the checklist.

Not medical advice

This page is educational. If a piercing is hot, has spreading redness or thick coloured discharge, or you feel feverish or unwell, see a doctor rather than trying another product.

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.