New jewelry should be surgical stainless steel or 14k or 18k gold. If you know that you tolerate niobium or titanium well, you might start with that. See what you piercer recommends. Sterling silver is better saved for established piercings that don’t get irritated by the high rate of tarnish. For washing around the piercing, use a natural soap without dyes, perfumes or heavy anti-bacterials. These can all irritate the new piercing, as can over-cleaning the piercing. You will want to rinse the piercing with something like Bactine once a day, or apply a light dab of triple antibiotic ointment (if you are not allergic to it) to keep the ring lubricated and moving freely.
Aftercare and Changing Jewelry
Piercings heal from the outside in, so what your nose is doing is growing a tunnel from the two sides of your nostril to surround the new jewelry. The surfaces can look healed whereas the inside areas might not be healed totally together, so don’t rush to change into new jewelry for the first two months or so. Once healed, some people switch the ring to a stud, or switch to a smaller, snugger ring than what they started with. A popular jewelry style is the nostril screw, an Indian-style where the short post ends in a half curl to hold it in place. Some people even find they can wear a conventional earring style post in their nostril and it will stay in place without a backing. This will depend on how “tight” your piercing and the jewelry fit. Beware, you can loose backless studs when you sneeze!You can now get an eBook on nose piercings. It contains more information on healing and aftercare (especially keloids), and a question and answer section based on email received at this site. Check it out!
For more on nose piercing, read more about them, or ask a nose piercing question. For body piercing aftercare, you might like Tattoo Goo Deluxe Tattoo & Piercing Care Kit or X-Pression & Blue Wave Piercing Aftercare Kit
