> About PTFE Jewelry
What Exactly is PTFE?
PTFE is short for Polytetrafluoroethylene and is more commonly known as teflon. PTFE is a type of fluoropolymer which has numerous applications including flexible body piercing jewelry. Most commonly used as a non stick coating for cookware, PTFE also has many other uses including the newest and (at least for our purposes) most important use – body piercing jewelry!
Benefits of PTFE in Body Piercing Applications:
PTFE has several very important benefits when used in body piercing applications. These benefits include:
- Flexibility
- Light weight
- Hypoallergenic properties
- Non stick surface
Flexibility is a very good property in many body piercing applications. This is especially true in such applications as: navel piercings in pregnant females, corset piercings and other similar surface piercings such as nape piercings, and various body piercings in athletically active people.
The flexible property of PTFE has a dual benefit of maximizing comfort for the wearer while simultaneously reducing stress on the body by flexing with the tissue instead of working against it as is the case with traditional metal body piercing jewelry. This reduced stress on tissue not only helps in long term piercings, but even more importantly can substantially reduce healing times in new body piercings.
Similar to flexibility, the lightweight property of PTFE increases the wearers comfort and reduces stress on body tissues which can further reduce healing times. This benefit becomes even more important when multiple piercings are done in close proximity to each other such as nape and corset piercings.
Arguably the most important benefit of using PTFE for body piercing is the fact that it is substantially inert and, as a result, extremely hypoallergenic. One of the most common sources of infection and irritation in people with various body piercings is the frequency of allergic reaction and rejection by the body of many metals and other materials. Because issues with allergy and rejection are virtually unheard of with PTFE, it is a prime material for use in surgical implants and body piercing.
Anyone that has ever had a body piercing is intimately familiar with the “crusties” that invariably form on the jewelry during the healing process. These crusty deposits are formed as a natural part of the body’s healing process and are largely composed of lymph and white blood cells which the body uses to attack the foreign body and to promote healing.
While these crusty deposits are not, in and of themselves, necessarily a bad thing, they create a constant need to clean the jewelry and once dried can make a prime breeding ground for bacteria which can often lead to the very infection which they are intended to combat.
Unlike 316LVM stainless steel, titanium, niobium, and other materials which are commonly used in the manufacture of quality body piercing jewelry, PTFE has a natural non stick attribute which does not allow these cells to attach. The result of this is that new body piercings with PTFE jewelry heal in (on average) half the time as compared to similar piercings with traditional jewelry.
We do not mean to say that using PTFE will eliminate the need to keep your new piercing clean, but the absence of crusty deposits on the jewelry will dramatically reduce the chance of infection from those bacteria laden clumps being pushed back through the tissue as the jewelry naturally moves about during wearing and cleaning.
Feel free to add comments about your own personal experience with PTFE.
