A Beginner’s Guide to Ear Stretching

Ever thought about stretching your ears? Here’s The Krafty Lady’s guide to how to do it safely (almost!) painlessly… Don’t forget that these are just basic tips – if you’re seriously thinking about it you should go to your local piercing expert who can take a look and give you advice based on your specific requirements – some piercing experts also stretch ears, so it’s worth finding out how much it will be for a professional job. And it’s almost always best to go to an expert if you’re thinking of stretching anything other than your ear lobes!

• Firstly, you’ll need to have a piercing in the first place. NEVER begin stretching your ears until the holes are completely healed up – it can be best to wait three times as long as it takes to heal before you even think about buying your first stretcher. It allows the skin to heal and strengthen before becoming traumatized by stretching, and will hurt a lot less!
•  Okay, so you’ve had your piercings a while and you go out to get your new stretchers. A normal piercing hole is 1.6mm in width – this can vary slightly, and it’ll be worth finding out from whoever pierced you before you buy your first stretcher.
• A taper is probably the easiest and most comfortable way to stretch your ears. You’ll need to know the measurements of the widest and narrowest part before you buy it, and as a beginner it’s best to go for stainless steel tapers as they do not absorb bacteria and infections. Most people tend to start stretching up to 2mm, so start with a taper that is 1.6mm at the narrowest end and 2mm at the widest point.
• Don’t take it too quickly! Stretching should never be painful and it certainly shouldn’t bleed. Massaging your lobe or holding a warm damp cloth up to it before the process will help circulation and relax the tissue in the lobe. AND ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS WITH ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP IF YOU’RE STRETCHING A LOBE YOURSELF. 
• Lubricant can be used on the taper – but it’s not recommended to put too much on, as it could slip out of your hands. Water itself can be used, or perhaps a mixture of tea tree oil and vitamin E. Push the taper into your ear as far as it will comfortably go, then push it in slightly further until you can feel your lobes warming up and tingling, but not painful – they may sting slightly. Then, use the rubber “o” rings provided to hold the taper into place. 
• Well done! That’s the first step. Now it’s up to your body to decide how long it will be before you can stretch again. Everyone is different – it can take people a matter of weeks to stretch to 6mm, some people can take months. NEVER rush the process – you could end up damaging your ear for good. And never stretch too far too soon – it’ll hurt! You must always wait for your ear to heal properly before you begin stretching again.
• Don’t forget that stretching to 8mm or over could mean risk of damage to your ears if it is not done properly, and 20mm or over and there’s no going back! So be sure it’s what you want to do before going ahead with a larger stretcher. But it IS different for everyone.
• After stretching your ear will probably be slightly inflamed and may sting a little, but as I said before – THERE SHOULD BE NO BLOOD. If your ear does bleed, it means that you have done some tissue damage and it’s best to take the taper out and to let the ear heal completely before you begin stretching again.
• It’s really important that you keep your ear clean. Dust and skin cells build up in the enlarged hole and create a cheesey discharge (lovely!), so clean your ear with a mild saline (salt water) solution or antibacterial soap – unfragranced soap is even better because it won’t cause any irritation. Do this once or twice a day. Turn your taper gently to prevent it sticking and to clean around the inside of the hole. And always wash your hands before doing so! 

Congratulations! You’ve done your first stretching – easily, cleanly and almost pain-free! Now you can go and have some fun choosing your first lot of funky stretchers – there are loads available on the market so have fun!

If you need any more information please don’t hesitate to drop us an email, but to ensure you get accurate advice go and see your local piercing specialist who’ll be happy to help out! And don’t forget we sell all kinds of stretchers, so check out www.thekraftylady.co.uk for some ideas of what you can wear once your stretchers are fully healed.

Busy… Busy… Busy… But Not on the High Street

It’s been really busy in the shop for the past few weeks, which is great to see! In fact, I’ve had trouble keeping up on my own, but we’ve done really well to get everybody’s orders out on time – and this is really a reminder that if you want to purchase something, please do it soon to guarantee delivery before Christmas – there have still been international orders flooding in, and although we post them as soon as the order is paid for, delivery is out of our hands once we hand it over to the Royal Mail, (and we all know what they’re like!).

I was watching the news this morning, (I’ve found that since we have started running the business, the news seems to be on a lot more – I even watch programmes like Working Lunch……. And understand them! *shiver*), and saw that High Street Sales have slumped. You would think that I’d be happy with this fact – as we run entirely on line and have no plans to start a High Street shop, but it rather saddens me! I originally come from Canterbury, which has had some amazing changes in the past few years – and good ones at that.
I remember when they first started knocking the old parts of Canterbury down, and having discussions with everyone at how rubbish the new town was going to be, and why they couldn’t leave anything alone! But the results are really impressive. And, despite what people say, the small independent shops that you find in the little back streets are now beginning to see more business coming in thanks to all of the nice developements and new walkways the council have bothered to put in to attract people to that part of the town.
And I miss those little shops! Ashford, unfortunately, has nothing like this – the odd few quirky shops that have been here have come and gone fairly quickly, and they were fun whilst they lasted. But the reality is, we set up The Krafty Lady for people who live in towns like ours – where it’s impossible to get funky accessories and unique gifts, not to take the business away from the High Street.
So, I’m urging you, if you live in a place that DOES have cool independent shops run by real hard-working people who CARE about their businesses, then use them! 🙂 I’m not saying don’t come to us, (gosh, that would be terrible!), but we’ve got to work together to get business back on to our High Streets, or before long they might well disappear to online shopping and Tesco. We certainly wouldn’t want this – next year we hope to be out and about at Craft Fairs and Festivals, and there’ll be no point in doing that if you’ve already bought everything online! 🙂

So, back to business at the shop…. I’ve been so busy advertising this week it’s unreal! I knew we had to advertise ourselves to get free publicity, but it’s been a real challenge trying to think of new ways to get our name out there, without annoying anybody! 🙂 I think we’ve done pretty well though. We’re still working hard on the graphics for our new website which will *hopefully* be launched in around March/April time next year, so that’s definitely something to look forward to. But other than that it’s mostly posting for me at the moment!

I’d still love you to send in some of your photos in our gear, and we’ll get some sort of montage thing going on in our MySpace and Facebook pages, so just drop your photos via email to me at: thekraftylady@googlemail.com and become a model for The Krafty Lady! We guarantee not to use any of the pics anywhere else unless we have your permission, but it’s not to be taken too seriously – a bit of fun and a way to put a name to a face!

So I’m going to leave it at that for now…. and remind you all again that last posting day is looming upon us! Have a good day people – back with more updates after the weekend! ;-D