Your Guide to Nose Piercings – Part II

Bridge piercings

Continuing along on our journey along the nose that we began last week, we have come to the striking yet relatively unusual bridge piercing. This sits, as you would imagine, at the bridge of the nose – most often at its narrowest part between the eyes. It can be a beautiful way of drawing attention to your eyes, and is also known as an ‘Erl’ piercing.

It is technically classified as a surface piercing as it does not go through cartilage, but only that bit of skin you can feel if you pinch the upper part of the bridge of your nose (or someone else’s for that matter, but we hear its rude to go about pinching other people out of curiosity).

Since they are surface piercings, there is a higher risk of migration or rejection. This can be somewhat mitigated by choosing a curved barbell for your jewellery. 

There have been a few rumours about them causing people to become cross-eyed. However, we struggle to find anyone who has had the piercing done actually confirm this. The brain is very good at filtering things out, and most people forget it is even there. If you constantly see the jewellery out of the inner corners of your eyes, the barbell is most likely too long. (Although, during the healing process, it needs to be slightly longer to allow for swelling.)

An Erl piercing can heal in as little as two to three months, if you look after it well enough. And they are not as painful as you might think, reportedly somewhere around a six out of ten. Meaning that, if you have some cartilage ear piercings done and are accustomed to the pain level, you should be fine. 

Austin bar piercings

Resembling a bridge piercing but located much further down your nose, an Austin bar goes in on one side of the tip of the nose and comes out the other. It does not pierce the nostril or the septum, but rather sits horizontally through the nasal cap.

Austin bars also heal relatively quickly, as they do not pass through the nasal cavity. However, due to its location it is fairly exposed – no nose rubbing up against things for some time! Most often performed with a standard piercing needle, Austin bars take about two to three months to heal.

Nasallang piercings

If the piercing instead runs horizontally through the nasal cavity, it is known as a nasallang. It goes in through one nostril, then the septum, and then out on the side of the other nostril.

Since it pierces three planes at once, this one is considered to be one of the more difficult piercings. And, individual pain tolerances aside – one of the more painful ones. People and piercers report it to be somewhere as high as an 8 on a scale of ten. Nasallang piercings take about four to six months to heal.