Helix piercing in Auckland
The right spot on your rim, a piece you love, and all the time it takes. A needle, never a gun, at 389 Parnell Road.
How much is it?
Either way the price covers the piercing, the jewellery, your aftercare and the checkup four weeks later. Nothing is added at the chair, and nothing to pay when you book.
Open seven days, by appointment. One client in the room.
What a helix is, and where on the rim
The helix is the curved outer rim of the upper ear. Most sit on the upper half: mid rim, where a piece looks settled, or nearer the top, where it has more space around it.
Two or three up the same rim make a double or triple helix, and we pierce those in one visit as a matter of course. The forward helix, on the small fold beside your face, has its own page.
Will it suit you?
The rim isn’t the same on every ear. The cartilage runs thicker or thinner and the fold sits tighter or looser, which changes where a piece sits flat and heals cleanly. Most ears have more than one spot that works, so the question at the table is which one, not whether.
There are four times we’ll tell you a helix isn’t the right call:
- Your rim has no clean spot.
- You wear over-ear headphones every day. A helix needs three months without them, and it will fight them long after.
- The rim 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?
Short and sharp, and less than most people expect.
It’s one pass of the needle and it’s over in a moment. The first fortnight is sorer than the piercing itself, mostly when something presses on it.
Who pierces it
Tom or Kat, one client in the room, forty-five minutes.
From twelve with a parent in the room, or sixteen and over on your own. Everyone brings photo ID.
“It was my first cartilage piercing and I was a bit nervous. He made me feel incredibly at ease and took his time.”
What happens at the appointment
You sit at the low table with a mirror in your hand. We look at 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, and which moves as often as it needs to.
The piercing is one pass of a single-use sterile needle, and the piece goes in at the same moment. A new helix gets a flat post, because it sits close and lets the rim heal. If you’d rather a ring on the day, ask. Your checkup goes in the book before you leave.
How long does it take to heal?
About nine months
- Day onePierced, and your checkup booked before you leave.
- Four weeksYour checkup, included. The post is shortened if it’s ready. Swimming is fine from here.
- Three monthsOver-ear headphones back on.
- About nine monthsHealed. A new style can go in.
Sleeping, hair and headphones
Pressure while you sleep is what most often sets a helix back. Sleep on the other side, or use a travel pillow with a hole in it so the ear sits in the gap.
Long hair catches on a new post, so tie it back on that side early on, and keep your phone to the other ear. Earbuds in the other ear are fine.
How to clean it
Warm water in the shower once a day is the whole clean. Let it run over the ear, then leave it alone. Nothing else goes on it: no tea tree oil, no Savlon, no antiseptic, and no turning the jewellery.
Helix aftercare, week by weekIs this bump an infection?
Almost never.
A bump beside a healing helix is nearly always pressure: sleeping on it, a post that’s still long, or something put on it that shouldn’t have been. Leave the jewellery where it is and come in. If we pierced it, the look is included, healed or not.
Piercing bumps, and what to doWhen can I change it, or wear a hoop?
Once it’s healed, at about nine months. Until then the post you were pierced with stays in, shortened at your checkup. Changing early is what sets a helix back furthest.
Gold can go in on the day, or at your checkup when the post comes down, priced on the piece alone.
Can I have more than one?
Two or three on one rim, yes, in one visit. Both ears at once, we’d rather not: while a helix heals you need a side to sleep on. Book the second ear once the first has settled, and we’ll tell you at your checkup when that is.
What goes in it
In titanium, a flat labret with a threaded end or a threadless pin. In gold, anything that sits close to the rim: a plain pin, a single stone, a cluster or a shaped end.
Three from the case for a helix, each pierced in the price
Gold Viewing. Half an hour with the case and the mirror, no needle.
Book a viewingPierced somewhere else and it isn’t right?
A helix that’s crooked, sinking or never settled is usually a placement problem, not an aftercare one. 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.
Book a lookWhat if I take it out?
A fresh helix usually closes if it comes out early. A healed one keeps a small mark. Worth knowing before you start.
Book a helix
$150 in titanium, or from $350 in gold. Nothing to pay when you book.
389 Parnell Road, Parnell, Auckland. Open seven days, by appointment. Directions