For all Ear Lobe Reconstruction* procedures your tunnels, plugs, hangers or any other type of jewellery must be removed permanently**. Six weeks is the bare minimum length of time required, however for larger than 20mm we recommend them out for ten weeks for best results otherwise you’ll be left with really weird, unnatural shaped lobes. All of the results photos in my portfolio are from ear lobes that had no jewellery prior to the procedure for a minimum of 6 weeks and in most cases, much longer. Please note that this also applies to normal earrings too as any weight is pulling your skin out of shape even if it’s only by a small amount.
When you first remove your tunnels after years of wearing them, you won’t have much (if any) fat left in your ear lobes; just skin. Within 6 weeks, your body will grow the fat back in your ear lobes so that we can reshape them. We can’t reshape something that isn’t there i.e. we can’t make an ear lobe out of just skin, there has to be fat.
The photo at the bottom is a perfect example. When my client first removed his jewellery he had nothing left but straggly flaps of empty skin. Reconstruction would have been impossible. A year later and his ear lobes had fully recovered to a normal fat content level allowing us to perform the procedure.
Can I put them in at night?
Can I put them in for work?
Can I wear silicone?
Nope. Putting them in at all will drastically slow your body’s healing process. It would take over a year for it to have the same effect, you would also need to be constantly sizing down your tunnels as much as possible and only using the lightest materials (very thin silicone). Even then, you’d have to do that for a much longer period of time.
What if I just turn up anyway and lie about it?
Lying about it isn’t the problem, it just wouldn’t even be possible to do, I can’t make a ear lobe out of nothingness – there has to be flesh there to make an ear lobe out of! I’ve literally sent people home because they haven’t followed the instructions! Trust me, I’d love to just do it anyway and take the money, but it can’t physically be done until you have grown the fat back.
Nothing will really speed up this process either; eat healthy, drink lots of water, take your vitamins and have patience! At the end of the day, you are going to have these results for the rest of your life – do you really want to rush this?
* This information only applies to Reconstruction procedures (hole closure), not Split Repair or Reductions.
** You can have your ears re-pierced six weeks after the Ear Lobe Reconstruction procedure.