What size should I pick for my piercing?
When it comes to piercing jewelry, there are 2 main measurements involved. The 1st measurement refers to the diameter size of the ring, or the length of the barbell. And the 2nd measurement refers to the the gauge size or thickness of your ring/barbell.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Diameter Size & Length
When it comes to the diameter size of your ring, or the length of your piercing barbell, unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all. Everyone's jewelry will fit a little differently depending on your specific piercing placement, body anatomy, etc.
With that being said, there are certain diameter sizes and lengths that are considered "standard", and are the most commonly used size for each piercing.
If you are shopping for your septum piercing, and you are not sure which diameter size would work best for you, please visit our "Septum Piercing Example Photos by Diameter Size" page which can be found here!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Gauge Size
Gauge size refers to the thickness of your ring / barbell. For septum piercings and cartilage piercings including helix, tragus, and daith piercings, the standard gauge size / most common gauge size used is 16g (1.2mm).
However, sometimes a piercer will decide to use a slightly thicker needle size for your initial piercing such as 14g (1.6mm). Or if you have gauged up your piercing to a slightly thicker size, then it is likely 14g.
For belly / navel piercings, tongue rings, nipple rings, industrial piercings, and VCH piercings, 14g (1.6mm) is the standard / most common gauge size used. For traditional earlobe piercings and nostril/nose studs, the standard / most common gauge size used is 20g (0.81mm).
If you are unsure what gauge size your piercing is, it is often best to reach out to whoever did your piercing initially and ask them to confirm, or to default to the standard gauge size for your piercing which can be found below:
Standard Piercing Sizes
| Piercing |
Standard Gauge |
Standard Length |
| Belly / Navel Ring / VCH |
14G |
3/8" (10mm)
|
| Septum |
16G |
3/8" (10mm) |
| Tongue Piercing |
14G |
5/8" (16mm) |
| Daith Piercing |
14G , 16G |
3/8" (10mm) or 1/2" (12mm) |
| Eyebrow Piercing |
16G |
5/16" (8mm) |
| Industrial Barbell |
14G
|
1 1/2" (38mm) |
| Lip Rings & Vertical Labret |
16G |
5/16" (8mm) or 3/8" (10mm) |
| Monroe Piercing |
16G |
5/16" (8mm) or 3/8" (10mm) |
| Nipple Piercing |
14G |
1/2" (12mm) |
| Tragus / Helix / Rook / Conch |
16G , 18G |
1/4"(6mm) or 5/16" (8mm) |
| Nose Piercing |
20G , 18G |
1/4" (6.4mm)
|
| Earlobe |
20G |
1/4" (6.4mm) or 5/16" (8mm)
|
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
How do I confirm what length I need for my barbell?
The length of your body jewelry refers to the wearable length of the barbell that goes through your piercing. The wearable / measurable length of the barbell does not include the ball endings or charms, as shown below:
You will need to grab a ruler to measure your current, well-fitting barbell(s) at home as demonstrated below:
The example above measures 1-1/2" (38mm) while the example below measures 1-1/4" (32mm).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
How do I confirm what diameter size I need for my horseshoe ring or CBR piercing?
Diameter is used to measure the size of round barbells such as rings, hoops and CBRs. It refers to the length across the center of the ring (the inner diameter) as shown below:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Gauge Size to Millimeters Conversion Chart
Length & Diameter Inches to Millimeters Conversion Chart
| Inches |
Millimeters |
| 1/4" |
6.4 |
| 5/16" |
8 |
| 3/8" |
10 |
| 7/16" |
11 |
| 1/2" |
12 |
| 9/16" |
14 |
| 5/8" |
16 |
| 3/4" |
19 |
| 7/8" |
22 |
| 1" |
25 |
| 1-1/4" |
32 |
| 1-3/8" |
35 |
| 1-1/2" |
38 |
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☼ ☽ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Copyright © Cali Crystals: 2024, All Rights Reserved
All of the photos, item listings and other information provided on this website are the sole property of Cali Crystals, and may NOT be duplicated, copied, modified or adapted in any way without our express written permission.
Our Content, as found within our Website and Shopify store, is protected under United States and foreign copyright laws. The copying, redistribution, use or publication of any such Content from our shop is strictly prohibited.
