Tunnels, Trendy Ear Gauges and Funky Sterling Silver Rings

December 07, 2017

If you're in the process of stretching your piercings so that you can wear thicker or wider earrings, or want really large holes for tunnels and plugs, then you probably need tapers to start with, or a series of different sized ear gauges. You may also be looking for an ear stretching kit. For about $10 or $11 you can get a taper kit that includes a set of acrylic tapers that start at size 0 and go up to 14 gauge. Naturally you can stop stretching whenever you want, but the trendiest gauges, plugs and tunnels, that you'll likely want to wear when stretching is complete, are usually for holes that can accommodate a large flared ear gauge. Let's have a look at what's available.

Funky Designs and Where To Shop

What's fun about the newest styles is that they can be hollow in the middle or have solid centers with an insect set into resin (sounds creepy but it's not...sort of like man-made amber), or can be coconut wood with a tribal motif, or can be really funky neon colored acrylic, even with sparkles or glow in the dark. Although silver isn't the recommended metal for piercings, it can be fun to get white metal, in titanium or stainless steel, and match them to other jewelry items, like sterling silver rings with similar tribal or trendy motifs. Minky Monkey, which is mostly an online shop that carries body piercing jewelry (similar to places like Body Candy, Painful Pleasures and other online shops), has a few rings (for fingers) that have matching tattoo and ethnic patterns, but the settings are done in stainless steel, the same as the body jewelry) so they're a little more expensive than the really cheap silver rings you can get elsewhere.

My Favorite Styles

Personally, I like the trendy hot pink CZ gauge sold through Minky Monkey, a shop I recently discovered online. The shaft of the plug style is made from surgical steel; each piece has a rubber stopper, and there's a groove for the O ring to stay in place, but the front is a dazzling bit of pink bling, about 6mms of cubic zirconia. The problem is that these items are sold separately, not is sets of two like most earrings, so although the price is only a little over $10, a set of two actually costs over $20, which is OUCH! for people like me. But, these plugs are so classy because of the faux gemstone that they can even be worn to dressy events, and since the setting is stainless steel, which is white, they pair fabulously with other CZ silver jewelry I already own.

For everyday, the best styles that look fashionable, but are not over the top, or too expensive, are the acrylic UV glow in the dark designs that are about $3 or $4 and are absolutely excellent if you go dancing and the place is rather dark...your ears look really funky glowing as you move to the beat.