8g from the internet isnt same as from store

[jake939]

so this jewelry website offered to hook my band up with free stuff. all we had to do is by a pair of plugs at the target size, and then they sent all the tapers leading up to that. and i got up to 10g until i decided to go buy some plugs

so i went to the mall and bought some 8s from a store and went home. but the thing is there smaller than the tapers i got from the website. at the mall i looked at every place that sold any types of plugs and all the 8s seemed smaller than the ones i got from the website but im really confused as to which size is the real one. any way i could figure that out?

[Boffey]

Measure them?

[corazon_de_oro]

8G can be 3mm or 3.2mm. But if there's THAT big of a difference I'd say what you got is made or labelled incorrectly. If you got them at Hot Topic I've heard they're pretty bad about being off with sizes sometimes.

[jake939]

i got them at a store called funky breeze or somethin like that. im not sure if its just a local thing or they have them at lots of places? i guess i could believe it being a .2 difference. just kinda sucks :/ isnt this going to make it harder to get 6's in?

[corazon_de_oro]

I found 6G to be a pretty hard stretch anyway... I had to wait nearly three months and do LOTS of oil massages before my ear was ready. But if you want you could use the bigger 8G plugs as sort of an in-between size to make it easier.

[vdub]

My advice is to ignore the sizes on the jewelry and just move up through them in order starting smallest. Just take it easy and don't force anything. The "natives" have been doing it just fine without any formal measurements.

I had some 4's that were closer to 2.

[corazon_de_oro]

Well, if the stuff you're using is labeled wrong, you could be skipping sizes without even knowing it. Yeah, people have been stretching without formal sizes for millions of years, but it doesn't mean it's the best option. If you have proper sizes available why would you deliberately ignore them? 1mm at a time (after 6G or so) is the best way to go. You don't want to end up with a blowout when it can be avoided.