Conch piercing in Auckland

What a conch is: inner or outer

The bowl of cartilage in the middle of the ear, inside the rim, and the one place on the ear with room for a larger piece. It takes a piercing in two quite different places.

The inner conch is the cupped part beside the ear canal, deepest in the bowl. A piece sits centred in the ear, its flat back behind the cartilage and out of sight from the front. This is what most people mean when they say conch.

The outer conch is the flatter panel between the inner ridge and the rim. Once healed it can carry a large ring that wraps around the outside of the ear. If that’s where you’re heading, say so at the first visit: the ring bridges two marks, so both get planned together even when only one is pierced.

Will it suit you?

Every conch is shaped differently. How deep the bowl runs, and how thick the cartilage is across it, decide how far in the mark can sit and what will sit flat there. That’s a look in person, not a look at a photo.

There are five times we’ll tell you a conch isn’t the right call:

• Your bowl is too shallow, or the cartilage too thin, to hold a piece flat.
• You wear in-ear buds every day. A bud sits straight against a healing inner conch.
• You wear over-ear headphones every day. The cup presses on the whole bowl.
• The conch carries significant scarring from earlier piercings.
• Your ear won’t support the look you have in mind. We’ll say so, and show you what it will.

We would rather say no at the table than pierce on a maybe.

Does it hurt? What are the downsides?

It takes a beat longer than a helix, and it’s still brief.

It’s one pass of the needle through thicker cartilage, then sore for a fortnight, mostly when something presses on it. The downsides are all in the healing: nine to twelve months, no in-ear buds in that ear for the first three months, and no sleeping on that side.

Who pierces it

Tom or Kat, one client in the room, forty-five minutes.

Sixteen and over. Everyone brings photo ID.

What happens at the appointment

You sit at the low table with a mirror in your hand. We look at the bowl of your ear, find the spot, and if you’d like gold you choose the piece, held up to your ear. Then the mark, which you see and agree with before anything else happens.

The piercing is one pass of a single-use sterile needle, and the piece goes in at the same moment. A new conch always gets a flat post, never a ring, because a post sits still while the cartilage heals. Your checkup goes in the book before you leave.

How long does it take to heal?

Nine to twelve months

1. Day onePierced, and your checkup booked before you leave.
2. Four weeksYour checkup, included. The post is shortened if it’s ready. Swimming is fine from here.
3. Three monthsEarbuds back in that ear.
4. Nine to twelve monthsHealed. A ring or a new style can go in.

How to clean it

Warm water in the shower once a day is the whole clean. Let it run through the bowl, then pat it dry with a paper towel. Nothing else goes on it: no tea tree oil, no Savlon, no antiseptic, and no turning the jewellery.

Is this bump an infection?

Almost never.

A bump beside a healing conch is the usual complication, and it’s almost always pressure. It often shows on the back of the ear, behind the piece; that’s the same thing. Taking the cause away is most of the fix. Leave the post where it is, don’t squeeze it, and come in. If we pierced it, the look is included, healed or not.

When can I wear a ring?

Once it’s healed, at nine to twelve months. Until then the post you were pierced with stays in, shortened at your checkup. A ring goes in only after that, never on the day.

Gold can go in on the day, because the piece is chosen before the spot is marked, or at your checkup when the post comes down, priced on the piece alone.

Can I have both ears done at once?

We’d rather not: while a conch heals you need a side to sleep on and an ear for your earbuds. Book the second once the first has settled, and we’ll tell you at your checkup when that is.

What goes in it

The bowl is the one place on the ear with room to spare, so a piece can be larger here without crowding what sits around it: a cluster, a halo or a shaped end. In titanium, a flat labret with a threaded end or a threadless pin.

Three from the case for a conch, each pierced in the price

Petals14k yellow gold · Lab-grown champagne sapphire marquise · 3x1.5mm$770

Graduated 3 Gem Pear Panaraya14k white gold · Iolite pear · 10mm$1,370

Tiny Starling14k white gold · Tanzanite marquise · 8mm$1,720

Pierced somewhere else and it isn’t right?

A conch that’s crooked, sunk into the bowl or never settled is usually placement, not aftercare. We’ll look at it and tell you plainly what’s going on and what we’d do.

The look is $30, taken off a piercing if you have one with us.

What if I take it out?

A fresh conch usually closes if it comes out early. A healed one keeps a small mark. Worth knowing before you start.