Hello again all.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and assistance in my original post (http://forums.bodyartforms.com/forums/t/18375.aspx). I took my jewelry out and had a friend really examine my ears. She said the holes were not red at all and you could see clean through no problem. I think when I looked at my own ears at the angle I was using, I could only see an edge. She said they looked great and healed so I went ahead and stretched to 4g.

The stretch was great! It's been a couple of days now and everything looks good. No pain or bleeding or anything strange. I'm very happy with this gauge. I was thinking of eventually going up to 0g but honestly, I think this looks pretty good on me.

However, my ears smell. Now ... my ears have smelled before, I think when I first got them done. They smell similar now. Maybe it seems worse because it's a fresh stretch. There's no leakage or anything. I am cleaning and using salt soaks. Is this a normal thing? This smell? I think only I can smell it because it's my ears but ...  

-E

yeah it's normal, it's ear cheese.... just a build up of sweat and dead skin cells,

keep cleaning them, and you can try out different materials of plugs to find out which cut down the production... If your on Steel try glass, and once your longer at 4g then you can try organic materials and see what works best with your body

Ohhhh .... so this is the infamous ear cheese.

I don't want to overwash ... I read somewhere on here that that was bad too. I have steel in right now.

Thank you for the advice!

- E

All you need to do is put some soap on your plugs before you wear them. Its that easy. And wash off the soap before you put them in. Then you shoulden't be stinky 

Once your ears heal from the stretch try other materials. Mine get kinda icky with steel too, but they love glass and silicone most of the time. Organics are also awesome. 

Agree with kwaniesiam. I tend to get the "cheese" with almost any material I've tried, but silicone has really been wonderful with cutting that down. Plus, earskins and eyelets look nice. :)