How to Apply Makeup Around Your Piercings

Applying Makeup to Facial Piercings

This question has popped up all over forums, Youtube videos and all over the net! How do you apply makeup around your piercings? When you’re dealing with a piercing such as a lip ring or cheek piercings, it can get tricky! Here are our tips and tricks for getting that pro makeup look without sacrificing your beautiful piercings.

Don’t Apply Makeup to a Healing Piercing!

It is never safe to apply moisturizer, sunscreen, or makeup to a healing piercing! Healing piercings don’t need any more bacterial in the open wound! You shouldn’t even be touching them without washing your hands first! So why would you apply makeup that may cause the piercing to inflame or get infected with bad bacteria?

Remove the Piercing First

This generally shouldn’t be an issue if you listened to step one and made sure not to apply makeup to a healing piercing! Taking out a piercing for a minute or two in order to apply lipstick should be no issue.

Although it may not be so simple for tricky piercings that become irritated easily (in that case, maybe forgo the makeup around it) or are hard to remove.

Female Piercing Jewelry

Use Detail Brushes

Little detail brushes like a teeny angled brush or a detail eye shadow brush are perfect for getting in close to a tiny nose piercing or around tricky cheek piercings. If you’re especially careful you may not even need to come into direct contact with the piercing itself.

Opt for Fast Drying Formulas and Mattes

Opting for fast drying formulas and matte or liquid lipsticks can help with smudging immensely. For loose lip rings you might have to hold the piercing away from the product while it dries though!

Change Your Piercing Jewelry!

If your makeup interfering with your piercings is annoying you that much, you might need a change of pace with a new set of piercing jewelry. Something as simple as changing from a lip ring to a labret might fix the entire issue or opting for longer cheek bars. Experimentation is key!

At the end of the day if you have a piercing with a mind of its own and no amount of experimenting with different jewelry is fixing the issue, you may just have to accept that your makeup is never going to be 100% perfect! But with these tips you sure as hell can make it as near perfect as possible!