Face & Body Piercing Chart

Quick answer: the common lip piercings are the labret, vertical labret, Monroe, medusa, snake bites, spider bites and dahlia. Inside the mouth there are the smiley and the tongue, and on the face the eyebrow and cheek. On the body: the belly button, nipple and dermal. By medical sources, lip piercings heal in 3 weeks to 3 months, a tongue in 3–8 weeks, a belly button in 4–12 months. Tap any of them above to see where it sits and what people say it feels like.

How to use it

Tap a numbered dot on the face, or a name in the list under it. A pair, like snake bites or dahlias, has two dots with the same number. The chart shows the piercing’s other names, where it sits in the words of two sources, how it feels as piercers and medical guides describe it, and the healing time from medical pages only. Switch to Body for belly button, nipple and dermal piercings. Every result has its own link you can take to your piercer.

Ear and nose piercings have their own chart: the Ear Piercing Chart covers the lobe, the cartilage and the nostril, septum and bridge.

Face and body piercing names chart

The pain column quotes the sources: no medical source scores pain, so the chart never turns their words into a number. The healing column spans every medical source’s own figures.

Where each one sits: Painful Pleasures, a piercing supplier, and Wikipedia, with WebMD and Healthline where they describe it. Pain: Painful Pleasures’ piercing pain guide and Healthline’s guides to each piercing.

How long do face and body piercings take to heal?

The medical pages give one time for all lip piercings and add their own for a few. ColumbiaDoctors’ health library gives the face (earlobes, eyebrows and lips) 6 to 8 weeks and the inside of the mouth or tongue 3 to 6 weeks. WebMD says a mouth piercing usually heals in 3 to 4 weeks, and Sutter Health gives a lip 2 to 3 months. Healthline’s guides add 6 to 8 weeks for a vertical labret, 8 to 12 weeks for a medusa and 2 to 3 months for snake bites. The chart shows the whole span, from the shortest time any of them gives to the longest, and never a middle number nobody published.

The body takes longer. A belly button: Cleveland Clinic says six months to a year (and up to 18 months), Healthline nine months to a year, ColumbiaDoctors up to 9 months and Sutter Health 4 months to 1 year. A nipple: 6 to 12 months by ColumbiaDoctors, 3 to 6 by Sutter Health. A dermal: one to three months, by Healthline. Two piercings have one medical time each, and the chart says so: the cheek (Sutter Health, 4 to 5 months) and the dermal.

Healing also depends on you. ColumbiaDoctors: it “can depend on how big the piercing is and how thick the tissue is at the site”, and a piercing “may not heal as fast if it gets infected or irritated or if scar tissue forms”. For the day-by-day healing of a belly button, tongue or lip piercing, use the Body Piercing Healing Tracker.

Which face piercing hurts the most?

No medical source scores piercing pain, and the guides describe it in words. Painful Pleasures says lip piercing pain “tends to stay in the mild to moderate zone”, that labrets, Monroes and dahlias “usually just feel like a quick pinch”, and that shark bites, canine bites or a medusa give “more of a zing” because they pass through more nerve-dense areas. Healthline says people rate snake bites “around 3–5” out of 10, and that the medusa is “bound to hurt more than, say, your earlobes”. A cheek is “likely to hurt less” than cartilage, by Healthline. On the body, Painful Pleasures puts a belly button “right in the middle of the pain scale” and the nipple among “the most painful piercings for many”. Where only one source describes a piercing, the chart says so.

Lip piercing combinations

Several names are two piercings worn together. Painful Pleasures lists them: canine bites (also called shark bites) are snake bites plus angel bites; cyber bites are a labret plus a medusa. Angel bites sit “on either side of the philtrum”, the dip under the nose; dolphin bites are two piercings side by side in the middle of the lower lip; and a lowbret is a labret “placed as low as possible in the lower lip area”. Only one source places these, so they are not on the chart.

Before a mouth piercing

WebMD notes that oral piercings can make it hard to speak, chew or swallow, can damage the tongue, gums or fillings, and that “the American Dental Association warns against oral piercings”. It also warns: “A swollen tongue can make it hard for you to breathe.” Swelling like that needs help at once. A cheek sits near the parotid gland, which Healthline says makes it “one of the riskier options”.

See a doctor if…

• Swelling, pain, heat or redness (or darkness on dark skin) that gets worse instead of settling
• Blood or pus coming out of it (white, green or yellow), or a bad smell
• A fever, chills or feeling generally unwell
• A tongue so swollen it is hard to swallow, talk or breathe: get help at once
• A dermal or surface piercing whose jewelry moves, droops or no longer sits flat: see your piercer, it may be rejecting

Ask for an urgent appointment with your doctor (in the UK, a GP or NHS 111). Leave the jewelry in unless a doctor tells you to take it out. Sources: NHS, Cleveland Clinic, Healthline and WebMD. This chart informs; it is not medical advice.

Ideas for your piercing

For jewelry and placement ideas, see NeedleStyle’s belly button piercing ideas and the tongue piercing trend, and for the ears and nose, ear piercing ideas and nose piercing ideas.

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