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Please like and share the photo to be in with a chance of winning! Winner will be announced here on wednesday 18th April 2012

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED…….AND THE WINNER IS…….

Claire Lisa Fraser

Congratulations!!

Like the page to be kept up to date with new discount codes and offers and please feel free to post about which other items you’d like to see on offer.

Current offer: 50% off FERIDO Belly bars for Facebook Friends! Ends 31/3/12
see our Facebook page for details

I hope that your friends and family love the items you have purchased for them, and may I take this oppertunity to wish you a fabulous Christmas.

If you’ve registered for our mailing list, keep an eye out for our gift to you in the new year!

We have different styles in stock, fun designs such as colourful christmas tree belly bars, santa hat belly bars and santa on his sleigh!

Looking for something a bit more classic? Maybe you would prefer a Christmas Angel, or a Classic Christmas Tree…

Looking for a belly bar that’s not just for Christmas?  Consider winter themed a fun snowman or a beautiful sparking snowflake belly bar…

Check out our current stock of christmas belly bars….

We don’t believe in forcing the customer to pay for something they don’t want and will only end up in the bin. It doesn’t seem very fair on the customer, and it is’t very environmentally friendly either!

At Gem’s Body Jewellery we do offer free gift packaging for items, but to keep costs low and bins empty we only send it to customers who actually want it.  The retail packaging we offer for free is low cost enough to be absorbed out of our profits, but it is limited stock and not available all year round (our free gift cards are available any time).  We tend to save it for Christmas time and offer it only on items over £1.00 in value.

We also offer better quality options such as carded retail packets and gift boxes for a small charge. This is a good option if you are buying s secial gift.

More information about our retail packaging on body jewellery items is available here:
http://www.gemsbodyjewellery.co.uk/packaging.asp

The standard size for a tongue bar is 1.6mm thick (14g) and 16mm long.  This fits the vast majority of people, although some may feel more comfortable with a longer or shorter bar, for many types of tongue bars all you need to do is swap the barbel for a longer one, however you need to check if the barbell you are purchacing has fixed or threaded ends.

Steel and titanium are the most popular metals for tongue bars.  Sometimes steel will be coted with coloured titanium, this is called titanium anodised.  Tongue bars can also be made of yellow or white gold, or be gold plated.

Flexible tongue bars are becoming more and more popular.  These are bars that bend and flex under pressure.  Unlike a metal bar, a flexible bar with bend if it is bashed against a tooth.  This significantly reduces the risk of tooth damage when wearing a tongue bar.

Flexible tongue bars come in all sorts of colours including including black red, white, green, orange, blue, pink and purple.  They are also available in clear and make very good retainers for those times when you need to keep your piercing less visible.

Flexible tongue bars are often UV reactive or Glow in the Dark.  Sometimes they have glitter or other novelty designs on the balls. 

Flexible Body jewellery can be made out of various materials. PTFE is common as is Bioflex, a bio-compatible and hypo-allergenic plastic brought to the body piercing market in 2001. 

Another benefit of PTFE and Bioflex is that it can be cut to the correct length using ordinary scissors and a new thread can be added using a standard metal threaded ball (or special threading tools are available).  This means that the customer can self adjust the bar to their perfect length.

It might be that you’re best friend has asked you to be a bridesmaid but would rather not have you with a face full of metal in her wedding photos.  It might be that all important job interview where you need to show maturity and professionalism, or it might be that you need to keep your piercings discrete at work all of the time.  Whatever the reason for wanting you keep your piercing hidden, you will need a piercing retainer.

All piercings will shrink if left without jewellery for a period of time.  If you have had your piercing a long time and it is fully healed, it may never fully close up, but you may still want to wear a retainer to prevent it from shrinking and making jewellery harder to insert when you are ready to wear it again.  Ideally a retainer shouldn’t be inserted until the piercing is healed, you really should try to avoid changing the jewellery at all during the healing period.

There are many different types of retainers, and it is up to you to choose the ones which suit you best.
For some people a normal piece of jewellery with clear balls will be enough to keep the piercing discreet, these are comfortable to wear for long periods of time but will obviously not hide the piercing completely.

 Or you may prefer a flesh coloured retainer, or one with clear or white stem:

Facial Piercings are much harder to keep descreet, but there are several options available.  For piercings such as lips and cheeks, a labret retainer may work best. You can choose one that is held in place with a rubber ‘O’ ring, or one that has a push fit stopper on the end:

Retainers with ‘O’ rings are quite secure providing you don’t mess about with them. I have found that some people do have a desire to keep checking on them and stretch the rubber by constantly removing and replacing that ‘O’ring.  If left alone, a well fitted O ring will not come off easily.
The downside is that the O rings can come off if caught on something, such as clothing. Generally I only recommend them for piercings where this cannot happen, they are not ideal for navel piercings for example.

Nose Retainers also come in many styles. Most are designed like a normal nose stud with a tiny clear ball.  The 1st one here is completely flexible for extra comfort, and has a discreet half ball on the end which is barely visible when worn, you can only see it close up. The 2nd one is a flat nose retainer, it has a tiny nobble on the end to keep it in place and the flat end sits flush against your skin, it is the most descreet type of nose retainer available.

For tongue piercings, there are also various types of retainers.  The clear balls and O ring styles as mentioned above are common, however Gem’s Body Jewellery also stocks the ‘No-See-Um’ half ball / dome style which are becoming more popular, you can choose clear, flesh or pink depending on your skin tone:

I could go on for days talking about all the different types of retainers available, these are just the most common ones.  Gem’s Body Jewellery also stocks flesh coloured plugs to help hide stretched ear piercings and larger guage retainers for stretched tongue piercings.  If you want more information about any types of retainers please do contact me to discuss your needs.

Now that you know what you are looking for please visit the retainers section of my site and make your purchase.  Our retainers are the lowest priced around because we want to do everything we can to help you keep your piercing.  After all you won’t be buying much else if your piercing closes up!http://www.gemsbodyjewellery.co.uk/wholesalepiercingretainers.asp

www.gemsbodyjewellery.co.uk offers a free item of body jewellery with no other purchase necessary.  You do still have to pay for shipping, but the cost is only the same as it would be on any under £10.  It is £1.50 within the UK.  If you are a registered customer and spend over £10 you also get free shipping (otherwise you have to spend £15)

Order yours now…http://www.gemsbodyjewellery.co.uk/freebodyjewellery.asp

www.gemsbodyjewellery.co.uk has a range of halloween themed body jewellery for all types of piercings. Skull dangle labret studs have been popular this year, as well as matching gothic cross tongue bars and ear studs!

Belly piercing? Check out the range of halloween gothic navel bars, ghosts, scream mask, coffins, vampires and more!

Migration is the process by which body jewellery is expelled if the body rejects it.  Any type of body jewellery is after all a foreign object, sometimes the body will react to protect itself by gradually pushing the object out through the skin.

If the body rejects a piercing, it will form new layers of skin behind the jewellery gradually pushing it towards the surface.  If not removed the jewellery will eventually be completely expelled.  Unfortunately this can cause significant irriversable scarring, so it is recommended that if a piercing rejects, the jewellery is removed before it migrates too far.  Once a piercing starts to reject it is very hard to stop it.  The best course of action is to remove the jewellery, allow the piercing to heal and get repierced at a later date with better placement and jewellery choices.

Some piercings are more prone to migration than others. Surface piercings such as navel (belly) and eyebrow piercings are prone to migration as well as other surface piercings such as the nape (back of the neck), Sternum (cleavage) and madison (throat/neck).

Some people are also more prone to rejected piercings than others, if you have sensitivities to nickel for example.

Risk of migration can be reduced by choosing flexible, bio-compatible jewellery such as PTFE or Bioplast.  Or if metal jewellery is required, titanium would be the metal of choice as it is more ‘implant friendly’ than steel.  You can also reduce the risk by caring for your piercing properly and not allowing it to move around to much, keep excersise to a minimum while your piercing is healing.  Wearing thicker gauge jewellery will also help anything smaller than 14g (1.6mm thick) is high risk for migration.

 A good piercer will be able to reduce the risk of migration by choosing the best placement for your piercing, try to choose a piercer with plenty of experience and expertise in surface piercings.