No piercings at work. It seems archaic. Most of society has embraced, or at least accepted, piercings and piercing culture. Yet a surprising number of businesses still refuse to allow piercings at work.
Nobody wants to give in to the haters but, let’s face it, we all need the paycheck. So if you want to keep your piercings, you need to learn how to keep them under wraps from time to time. This article gives some tips for hiding your piercings at work.
Hiding Piercings With Clothing
You can hide most of your body piercings and jewellery just by making the right clothing selections.
Hiding Bellybutton Piercings & Jewellery
Naval piercings are among the easier body piercings to hide at work. If your work insists on a no-piercing policy, odds are they also want you to wear a shirt. Avoid tube tops, keep those tops buttoned-up and there you go. Your belly button piercing is hidden.
Hiding Nipple Piercings & Jewellery
Nipple piercings are another body piercing that are easy to hide with clothes. Once again, if your work isn’t okay with piercings, they probably don’t want you going topless either. Other than fishnet tops, just about any shirt will cover up your nipple piercings.
The other thing to consider is the jewellery itself. Using smaller less conspicuous, nipple jewellery prevents them from poking too obviously through the shirt. Wearing thicker clothing, like sweaters can hide even large nipple piercing jewellery.
Hiding Dermal/Microdermal Piercings & Jewellery
The location of your dermals or microdermal makes a difference. You can only hide facial ones by covering your face. However, you can cover other common locations, like the collarbone or hips, with smart clothing options.
Collarbone dermal jewellery is easy to hide with a scarf or high-cut shirt. You can cover hip dermal piercings with overlapping shirt and pants, or with a dress.
Hiding Piercings With Your Hair
Earrings are some of the most acceptable piercings in workplaces. Yet, not everywhere allows them. Fortunately, ear piercings are some of the easiest to hide. As long as you have mid-length or long hair at least.
Most ear piercings can be hidden by simply wearing your hair down. The thicker and darker your hair is, the more effective this technique is. As well, earrings that are higher up on the ear and closer to the back are especially well hidden.
Cartilage piercings like daith, conch, and helix piercings are especially easy to hide.
Facial hair is another great way to hide piercings. A beard is an easy way to hide labret and medusa piercings. Smaller, less vibrant pieces are harder to spot. The thicker and darker the beard, the better of a hiding place it is.
Hiding Facial Piercings at Work
Facial piercings are some of the hardest to hide at work. As well, most facial piercings are intended to stand out. Who gets a
monroe piercing and doesn’t want to show it off?
The most likely candidates for hiding facial piercings are mouth and nose piercings.
Hiding Nose Piercings & Jewellery
Next to earrings, nostril studs are some of the most often accepted piercings in workplaces. That’s good news because they’re especially hard to hide. Short of comically oversized sunglasses, there aren’t a lot of options for hiding nasal studs.
Septum piercings are a different story. They can be hidden simply by picking the right jewellery type. A circular barbell, for example, can be effectively hidden simply by flipping the ends into the nostril.
Hiding Mouth Piercings & Jewellery
Piercings inside the mouth, like smiley or
tongue piercings can be easy to hide as well. The goal here is minimizing exposure. A tongue ring or tongue web piercing is actually pretty hard to notice unless your mouth is open wide. Staying conscious of covering your mouth when yawning or eating helps to make a tongue piercing harder to spot.
Smiley, or
scrumper, piercings are easy for most people to hide. If you tend to smile while showing a lot of teeth, however, you may have to tone that down. A big toothy smile will reveal your scrumper jewellery.
Safety Considerations
Not every employer that doesn’t allow jewellery does so because they’re a square. Sometimes it’s a safety consideration.
Jobs working with heavy machinery, for example, often recommend no loose clothing or jewellery, and having short or tied-back hair. It’s easy for things to get caught in machinery, which can lead to injury. In this case, maybe jewellery is best avoided at work. Or at least minimizing risk by your jewellery choice. A stud piercing, for example, is less likely to catch than oversized hoop earrings.
Picking Your Initial Piercing Jewellery
For a new piercing, it is important to
pick the right jewellery. Depending on where you get pierced and how you care for it, the healing process can take as long as 3 months.
Keep in mind that you might not be able to remove the jewellery before the piercing has healed.
You can start with “
invisible rings” if hiding jewellery is your primary concern. These are clear or neutral-colour piercing jewellery that are harder to notice. The problem with using these while your piercing heals is that you don’t get to show off your cool new piercing until you are able to replace it.
Ensure any clear retainers you use are glass. Alternatives like PTFE or plastic/acrylic are not safe for long-term wear in the body. They are especially not safe for fresh piercings.
