What is Industrial Bar Piercing?

First let us define what is body piercing, body piercing is creating an opening in the human body in which a jewelry may be worn in that hole, it is simply defined as the practice of puncturing or cutting a human body. It may sound so simple yet it sounds so painful right? Imagine cutting or making a hole in your body, doesn’t that hurt?

Now let us discuss a more specific kind of body piercing, the industrial bar piercing. What is this all about? Basically any two piercing holes that are connected with an extra long barbell is called the cartilage piercing of the ear or industrial piercing. There is actually a standard in industrial, the two helix peircings. Helix is the folded rim of skin and cartilage around most of the outer ear. It is the rounded and hard part of our ear. But, industrials can be a wide range of connected piercings.

Industrial piercing in North America, sometimes called as scaffold piercing in UK and IRL or construction piercing is, like what we have said earlier, any two pierced holes connected with a single straight piece of jewelry. For further explanation, however, it typically refers to a double perforation of the upper ear cartilage. Two peircings are made, one of which is in the anti-helix piercing, located fairly close to the head. The second one is located further down the cartilage on the opposite side of the ear and is called the helix piercing. From behind the ear a straight barbell is inserted trough the first piercing then travels diagonally across the front of the upper cartilage. After it goes through the second piercing, it is secured with a screw-on bead behind the second hole.

Because you created a hole in the human body more especially in the ear cartilage, it will be needing more time to heal. Healing process is no joke because it is typically being healed in three months and can last for a year until it is fully healed. The danger of course is that during the process of piercing and in the healing period, it is prone to infection. The barbell jewelry is worn during the healing period; it is usually 14g and is made with a sterile hollow piercing needle. Captive bead rings aka CBRs are sometimes used instead of the barbell itself and are exchanged with the barbell after the healing is complete. The use of these CBRs results in faster healing but this technique may cause improper alignment of the piercings when exchange after the healing. A flexible plastic tube can also be used and swapped for a metal bar when it is healed. Two or more industrial piercing on one ear creates four or more holes. Hence, it is often called a cage.