I received this message from a piercer:
Hey Elayne! I know you hear this all the time but you are amazing! I love the piercing bible and your blog is such a great resource! I have an aftercare question for you, any information you can provide would be such a help. Im a piercer and I recommend Biotene to all my clients with oral piercings, Today I did a piercing on a client who is a representative for Listerine Zero, We spent quite a while discussing the both Biotene and Listerine Zero, She told me Listerine Zero contains four different essential oils and no alcohol but can kill germs, Biotene cannot. I compared the ingredients and they share the same common main indgredients(propylene glycol, sodium benzoate, poloxamer 407 etc etc) but they have many different indgredients. She gave me a case of Listerine Zero, really nice of her, anyways before I start recommending it to clients I'd like your thoughts? My concern is since we recommend clients rinse 4-5 times a day and listerine zero has the ability to kill germs could this to irritating to a fresh piercing? Would you recommend I dilute the Listerine Zero with water to make it milder? I trust your opinion and I hope to hear back from you! thanks for reading this Elayne! M.
My reply:
Hi M.,
Thanks so much for your positive feedback; I really appreciate it.
From what I have seen from the online information avaialble, that product appears to be an alcohol-free mouth rinse, and therefore may be suitable for piercing care. It would concern me to have someone rinsing often with an alcohol-containing rinse, but that isn't an issue here. I imagine how well it will do for piercing care depends to some extent on the concentration of the essential oils. Interestingly, the label doesn't show what the essential oils are or give their quantities.
Since the company's rep is promoting this product for post-piercing aftercare (apparently undiluted), and you have a case of it, I think you might want to give it a try-- with informed consent. That means initially, I'd suggest giving it to your clients, rather than selling it, and let them know that you're trying it out as a new product. Tell clients that you're interested in their feedback about how it works. If anyone doesn't want to participate, I'd keep your usual product on hand as an alternative while you're checking out the new option.
Oh, also, piercers are only allowed to "suggest" or tell people there are products that we find work well for piercings, but only doctors can "recommend," so you should try to be cautious with your language. It makes a difference legally!
Please let me know how it goes; I'm very interested in hearing if it works well!
Sincerely,
Elayne
Elayne Angel, Author
The Piercing Bible--The Definitive Guide to Safe Body Piercing
President, Association of Professional Piercers
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