Body Jewelry

Body jewelry became popular thousands of years ago. Ancient tribes would use materials such as bone, tusks, and feathers in jewelry to adorn various parts of the face and body.

Throughout many ancient civilizations, body jewelry represented wealth and status in high society. During Biblical times, people looked at body jewelry as a symbol for beauty and fortune. In Egyptian societies, body jewelry also indicated signs of wealth and royalty. For Romans, men would pierce their nipples to illustrate their membership into high society as well as their loyalty to the Roman Empire.

In our modern days, body piercings and jewelry have come to be more of a fashion statement than anything else. Belly button rings, tongue rings, nose rings, and nipple rings are among the most popular types of body jewelry around. Of course, there are plenty of other extreme piercings that are also becoming common, such as genital piercings, neck piercings, lip piercings, hand piercings, and corset piercings.

The materials that make up the body jewelry, as well as the size and shape of the jewelry, will often depend on where your piercing is located and how fresh your piercing is. When you are dealing with a new piercing, there are certain materials that are recommended and others that you should stay away from to avoid infection. For example, many types of jewelry contain higher levels of nickel, which is an element that is not recommended for piercing jewelry. Many times nickel will cause infection or sensitivity to new piercings, while titanium and surgical stainless steel, although slightly more expensive, are very safe materials to use for fresh piercings.

Common materials that are used in body jewelry include gold, acrylic, glass, titanium, sterling silver, quartz, chalcedony, obsidian, amethyst, onyx, and agate.

Popular styles for body jewelry include various gauges (depending on what part of the body the piercing is located) of bead rings, seamless rings, captive tubes, barbells (both internally and externally threaded), eyelets, and plugs. Some of the rings are slightly more conservative, while the plugs may be worn by the daring who wish to stretch their piercing holes to the max.