What's a Piercing Retainer?

What is a piercing retainer & how do you use one?

Retainers aren't exactly glamorous but every jewelry box should have at least one! They're great for keeping your piercings open when you can't wear your regular jewelry. Today, Kyra is spilling the tea on all the details of this little-mentioned piercing topic.

Used for maintaining a piercing in a situation where you might not be able to wear regular jewelry.
A piercing can close up pretty quickly if you just take your jewelry out even if you’ve had that piercing for years.
Retainers are meant to be worn temporarily, not long term
Make sure your piercing is fully healed before you swap it out for a retainer!
They are often made of glass, bioplast, silicone or acrylic and they come in most styles, even flesh-toned silicone plugs!
They're perfect for hiding piercings for school, work or other events as they can be clear or flesh toned and are less obvious than your average piercing jewelry
Retainers are pretty mandatory for many medical procedures since metal jewelry isn't allowed
- For CAT scans, MRIs, Xrays you're often not allowed to wear metal jewelry
- It is possible that metal jewelry could get ripped out during some of these procedures
- Metal could interfere with the process
- If not taken out, metal jewelry will show up in an Xray and could get in the way of the area being examined.