Top five piercing jewelry tools—things that I use every day and things that might need to be in your tool chest at home. In this article, we’re going to go through the top five piercing jewelry tools that you’re going to commonly need to change jewelry.
#5: Ring and Closure Pliers
Starting with number five on our list of essential piercing jewelry tools.
If you wear any type of rings—seamless rings, beaded rings, captive rings, closure rings, anything that involves pulling apart—and you have thick gauges of jewelry, thick jewelry, you’re going to need ring expansion pliers.
What they do is they expand it to make it easy to take those out and put them back in.
And if you make a mistake and overstretch it, you do need the closures to kind of move it down. They also can be very helpful.
The closures work as kind of a plier when you’re bending things into a corkscrew and bending them back or trying to get them back into true.
They’re pretty inexpensive, pretty common, and easy to find.
#4: Jewelry Pliers
Number four on our piercing jewelry tools list: jewelry pliers. With these, I personally like—they’re just basically pliers, but they’re a little bit more specialized.
They either have a smooth finish on the inside where the grip is, where it actually attaches to the jewelry, or they have brass inside. And it makes it easier to kind of bend things around and hold things if you need to or kind of manhandle them without scratching the jewelry.
It’s something you should have, especially if you’re doing any type of work with beaded rings or curved bars or seamless rings where you actually have to bend them back and forth into a corkscrew, put it in, and then bend it back.
They also help out with things like if you need to rebend an L-bend in your nostril or a nostril screw or any of that stuff. It’s really nice, especially the brass ones, because that way you don’t have to worry about scratching the jewelry at all.
#3: Hemostats (Mosquitoes as Flat as Possible)
These are great for gripping things, especially threaded jewelry, to kind of give you something to grab onto instead of trying to grab the other side to unscrew things.
They also work really great with inserting jewelry into places. Places where you’re not going to be able to fit your thumb and your index finger.
Hemostats are one of the most versatile piercing jewelry tools that really make life easier when it comes to changing jewelry.
#2: Guide Pins (Threaded, Threadless, and Taper Pins)
At number two in our piercing jewelry tools ranking: guide pins.
Even if you’re just putting a piece of a ring in your nostril, using that guide pin makes it much easier to make sure that you are keeping that jewelry all the way through, not turning into the piercing. It also makes it a lot smoother to transfer or move jewelry in.
Piercings, sometimes once you take the jewelry out, they kind of collapse a little bit.
And they go kind of oval in some cases. Using the taper pin and just using the jewelry to put it in, it just makes it a lot smoother and a lot less traumatic to the piercing itself.
The other advantage to it is with the threadless and the threaded, it’s much easier to use that to make sure—especially the nostril.
If you push the threadless with the guide pin side down, insert the jewelry in there, and then push it back through, it’s a lot easier than trying to find the hole on the inside of your nose, which is next to impossible. It really makes life a lot simpler.
Threaded jewelry, especially with oral piercings like lip piercings, makes it really easy to not have to dig around to find the hole on the inside. It just makes life easier.
And the other advantage to it is you can push the jewelry out with the guide pin or taper, and then connect the new or take off the old jewelry, connect the new jewelry or put it against it and push it back in so that piercing’s never shut.
#1: The Bead Changer
This is a new addition to piercing jewelry tools. They’ve had stuff like this in the past, but they’re usually like these prong things like claws. And I never really liked those because there was no way to really get in there and clean them properly.
And I was always concerned that using them, especially on a professional level, that something would get inside that thing or in those claws and you could never get it off there. And then you’re transferring that to another client.
These are single usage. They’re made out of silicone. You just basically push them onto the ball. I’ve used them up to 4 millimeters. I don’t know if they sell different sizes, but they should come out with something for larger balls too.
But it grips that ball and it holds it in place. And one of the cool things about it, so you’re not chasing the damn ball all over the place as it rolls into the corner of whatever you put the jewelry on.
But it makes it much easier to put threaded jewelry on, especially in really tight areas like rooks and anything in the mouth, the nose, etc. It’s a lot easier to grab that and use that to put that jewelry on.
Conclusion
These five essential piercing jewelry tools are must-haves for anyone can make jewelry changing smoother and safer, whether you’re a professional or managing piercings at home.
Investing in quality tools protects your jewelry and ensures a comfortable experience. The right tool turns a frustrating task into a simple procedure.