Feel free to comment on, or rate this story below.

Visit Belly Button Rings Guide Shop.

You could end up having an outer or an inner cartilage piercing and it mainly depends upon where the ear actually is.

Obviously everybody is different and so the type of cartilage piercing that you end up with will not necessarily be the same one that your friend ended up with for example.

The Differences between Inner and Outer Conch piercings

The main difference between the two different conch piercings is that the inner one is situated in the centre cartilage and the outer one is situated on the outer cartilage.

You will find that the inner piercings tend to be a little larger than the outer ones. Therefore if you do end up with an inner cartilage piercing, once it has been properly stretched it is possible to wear an earlet.

If you are having an outer cartilage piercing then you should be aware that if you have it lower than 16 gauge then you run the risk of having it ripped out. So always choose a piece of jewellery that is at least 16g. Both types of cartilage piercings can be performed using dermal punching. Typically however an inner conch piercing will be performed using a hollow, large gauge needle and a barbell will be used as the initial piece of jewellery.

The outer cartilage piercing will usually be performed using a big gauge piercing needle. The initial jewellery for an outer piercing will typically be a curved barbell.

What you should know

Cartilage piercings can look really good once they have healed. The actual healing time can be anything from three to twelve months and you will need to follow certain after care procedures too to help it to heal properly. It is important to note that you should never attempt to change the type of jewellery that you have in the piercing whilst it is still healing.

If for whatever reason you do want to change the jewellery, you should ask the piercer to do it for you. This is because it could damage the piercing if you take it out.

Cartilage piercings are popular and they can be performed in a variety of different locations on the ear. You may want to talk through your options with the piercer to see which one would be better suited to you. Just as long as you take good care of the piercing after it has been done, you will get to experience the most benefits!

It can be actually argued whether the earlobe piercing falls under the body piercing category because it’s so common and widespread that many would think of it something unrelated to other body piercing types like nose piercing, tongue piercing and genital piercing.

However, don’t underestimate what the ear piercing can actually look like! Don’t forget that a human’s ear doesn’t end with an earlobe. There are so many places in the ears which can be pierced that you’ll be surprised.

Oh yes, even the simple earlobe piercing can be brought one step further and the lobe can be pierced from different angles.

So here you go – transverse lobe piercing. Still the very earlobe is being pierced, but not as usually. The piercing goes inside through the lobe parallely the ear instead of running through it from behind the lobe and emerging in the front. This is a modern kind of ear piercing as well as another variation of the lobe piercing –

Vertical lobe piercing pierces the earlobe vertically using a straight barbell. It goes in where an anti-tragus piercing would begin, but instead of coming out right above the earlobe goes all the way down. This one involves piercing the cartilage and therefore takes much longer to heal. Whereas a simple ear piercing would take a few weeks to heal, the vertical one may take up to a half-year to heal properly!

Do you know what’s the most painful of all the piercings? Genital piercing? Nope! It’s one of the ear piercing types – anti-tragus piercing. It is similar to the vertical lobe piercing with the upper part of the barbell entering through the cartilage above the earlobe. However, it doesn’t go through the lobe, it merely pierces the cartilage. Actually this ear piercing type is a very nice looking one, isn’t it? It might be worth the pain…

And here in the picture below you can see the most popular places for ear piercing.

Ear industrial piercing is also very popular. The most common version of it involves piercing the outer rim of the ear in two places and then connecting it using a straight barbell. The industrial piercings can go just about anywhere throughout the ear connecting two or more piercings. However, the standard ear industrial piercing is placed like where it says in the picture above and specific ear piercings – industrial barbells are being manufactured to adorn them.

Tragus piercing – has become quite a common type of ear piercing recently and there’s loads of nice tragus earrings available.

These days no-one will even look back at someone who has eyebrow piercing or a nose ring, not to mention different ear piercings.

But anyway, even now we can kind of separate ‘normal’ body piercing types from ‘extreme’ body piercing practiced only by those who are involved in body modification. I guess many folks would look back at someone carrying a huge plate in a stretched lip piercing, for instance!

So here I’ve sorted the most popular body piercing types and sub-types, and you can read more about them!

Facial & Ear Piercing

Ear Body Piercing

Cartilage Piercing, Tragus Piercing, Industrial Piercing

Eyebrow Body Piercing

Lip Body Piercing

Labret Piercing, Vertical Lip Piercing, Monroe Piercing, Double Lip Piercing

Nose Body Piercing

Tongue Body Piercing

Body Piercing

Microdermal Piercing

Nipple Body Piercing

Inverted Nipple Piercing

Navel Body Piercing

Navel Industrial Piercing

Surface Body Piercing

Extreme Body Piercing

Genital Piercing

Female Body Piercing

Male Body Piercing