The point of no return!!!! It sounds kind of spooky, like a warning sign before a dirt road or the title of a cheesy horror flick. In piercing, it's a term given to the point of stretching your ears where they will no longer be able to shrink back down to a ‘standard’ earring size. The concept is simple- if you stretch your ears before a certain point, folks say they’ll always be able to shrink back. So if you change your mind about stretching to get a job that requires you not to have them, you can always just let them shrink. But stretch past that point, and your ears will no longer shrink back down. Hence, the point of no return.
Well….just like the monsters from horror movies, the point of no return exists next to Frankenstein and Bigfoot….it isn’t real.
Now that’s not to say people’s lobes don’t shrink up if they decide to retire their plugs, very often they do! But everyone’s bodies are different, everyone's stretching journeys are different, and everyone’s ears are different. There is never a guarantee that your ears will shrink, even if only stretched to small sizes. Because of this, stretching should be considered a permanent modification.
When we stretch our ears, we are slowly expanding the channel of our piercings over time, gradually encouraging our bodies to stretch the tissue of our lobes larger and larger. This channel of our piercing is scar tissue, which doesn’t have the same elasticity as healthy tissue. We can look at other processes that expand skin in our body to understand what's happening in our ears. Pregnancy is a great example of this, our stomachs stretch and expand to make room for the baby. Some people will find their skin is very elastic, and stretches easily, and after birth their stomach returns to mostly the same as it was before. Others may have developed stretch marks, areas where the skin expanded more and faster than it could easily tolerate, and those stretch marks remain after birth. And some folks may have loose skin, and permanent changes to their stomach after delivery.
Ear stretching is much the same way. Some folks, who have very healthy ears and tissue, stretched using healthy methods, and have a little bit of luck, will find their lobes are very elastic and shrink back no problem at all. I’ve even seen folks shrink all the way from 5/8 back to a standard earring size- which seems like it should be impossible! Not everyone will have that experience, however. Some people will have naturally less elastic skin, and their lobes may refuse to shrink. I have had clients go up to only a 6g and their lobes never got any smaller than that, even going months without wearing jewelry. Some folks may stretch with unsafe methods, too quickly or with the wrong jewelry or tools. This can cause micro-tears and even blowouts on our ears, and this damage often prevents our ears from shrinking back to a ‘standard’ size. Some folks are stretching piercings that they had done with a gun as children- and these piercing gun piercings have more scar tissue. This means they may be less likely to shrink back down. Other factors can include skin conditions, autoimmune conditions, sensitivity and reactions to jewelry materials, climate, and multiple other factors.
There is just really no way to fully guarantee that your lobes will shrink if you decide to stop wearing them. This becomes an issue when folks accept new jobs or make lifestyle changes that require them to retire their stretched ears. The military is a great example of this- they only allow lobe piercing small enough to ‘not let light pass through’. More times than I can count in my career I’ve had clients come in very frustrated that they are being denied their service because their ear piercings are too big. They come in wanting to know why they won't shrink more, stating they “didn’t stretch past the point of no return” so why won’t they close up!? And when they refuse to naturally shrink any further, most of the time the only choice is to have the lobe surgically closed. This is a big investment for many folks, and one they often didn’t plan on having to do. Because of the myth of the point of no return, they just assumed they would always be able to take their plugs out and have them close.
What furthers this myth is many people's ears will shrink back down to a standard size. This does happen for people all the time! Heck, I had a recent ear issue that required me to not wear anything in my ears for a few weeks, and I lost about 8mm on my lobes in that time and had to stretch back up. Shrinkage does happen! But it’s not a guarantee. However, people with naturally more elastic lobes, or who were able to shrink back, will often use their own story to tell people “My ears did it…you’ll be fine!” The proliferation of folks sharing their personal success stories with their ears shrinking contributes to the myth of the point of no return and ignores the fact that everyone’s bodies and stretching experiences are going to be different.
This myth is very harmful, and often leads to deeply disappointed expectations at best, and sometimes lost career opportunities, or wedding day disasters. As a professional piercer, it breaks my heart to see this happen, when it could have been prevented by proper education and realistic expectations for the stretching process. So let's leave the point of no return with the vampires and the werewolves, and try to share more honest and accurate information when we talk about ear stretching!
Happy healing <3