The Viper Pit Tattoo and Piercing Studio

Piercing aftercare

Calm care. Clean healing. Keep your new piercing comfortable and protected while it settles.

This guide covers external piercings. Ask your piercer for instructions specific to your placement, especially oral or intimate piercings.

Ask the studio

Keep cleaning gentle

  1. Wash your hands before care.
  2. Use packaged, sterile 0.9% saline wound wash without additives. Avoid homemade salt mixes or contact-lens solution.
  3. Gently clean around the jewellery, following your piercer’s routine. Do not twist, rotate or force it.
  4. Pat dry carefully with clean disposable gauze or paper. Avoid snagging towels.

Do not over-clean, pick crusts or use alcohol, peroxide, tea tree oil or ointments unless prescribed.

Protect the piercing

Reduce rubbing, knocks and pressure. Keep bedding clean, and avoid sleeping directly on a healing ear piercing. Keep cosmetics and sprays away. Avoid pools, hot tubs and other immersion while healing.

Keep initial jewellery in. Ask us about fit checks, downsizing and changes; looking settled outside does not mean healing is complete.

What can be normal?

Early tenderness, itching, slight redness or darker skin around the site, and pale fluid forming a light crust can occur. Symptoms should gradually settle. Ask us about a persistent bump rather than squeezing or treating it yourself.

When to get medical help

Ask for an urgent GP appointment or call NHS 111 if you suspect infection. Increasing pain, heat, swelling, marked redness or darkening, pus, or feeling shivery or unwell need medical advice. Do not wait for a studio reply.

Leave jewellery in unless a doctor tells you to remove it. We can advise on routine care and fit, but cannot diagnose an infection.

NHS 111 advice

Questions about healing?

0161 270 6375
bookings@theviperpit.co.uk

Contact us if jewellery feels tight, catches, loosens or seems to be sinking into the skin. Do not force or dig it out; seek urgent medical advice if it is embedded.

Children’s ear-piercing aftercare · Tattoo aftercare · Before your appointment

Guidance checked 15 October 2026. Further reading: NHS: infected piercings, Association of Professional Piercers: aftercare, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital: caring for pierced ears. General information; follow healthcare advice for complications.

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