Aftercare suggested for healing a new body piercing almost always includes a sea salt soak. Wikibook's Body Piercing Aftercare explains the process.


The reason given this it is beneficial is it is somehow pushing out bacteria from the body. A similar claim comes from BME


This site says sea salt soaks can clear up already infected piercings

Take the time to treat it with a sea salt soak and you can clear up any piercing infection quickly. It's strange that most piercing enthusiasts make their own "sea salt soak", and most of them get it wrong and seriously slow down the healing process. The Normal Saline Solutions are isotonic. Isotonic solutions have equal osmotic pressure to the interior of your body cells, and that is hugely important for healing.

is routinely soaking a new piercing in a sea salt and water solution beneficial at all for healing? For prevention of infections? For getting rid of existing infections? What is the mechanism of action?

  • salt is a well known preservative, been used that way for thousands of years. I've no reason to believe it wouldn't help when washing out wounds (though it's likely to hurt like hell). – jwenting Jan 31 '12 at 6:46
  • Salt is often recommended for cleaning wounds however I would still question whither sea salt does so better than regular table salt would. – Rincewind42 Jan 31 '12 at 13:14
  • @jwenting salty water in concentrations suggested here does not hurt at all on fresh piercings. – Sam I Am Feb 1 '12 at 3:37
  • sea water is 4-5% NaOH content. It hurts, though maybe not as much as higher concentrations :) – jwenting Feb 1 '12 at 6:55

I found this review in The Cochrane Library - Water for wound cleansing

This is the Plain Language Summary:


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  • While helpful and definitely relevant, this doesn't really answer the question much. The goal of healing a piercing is to create a fistula, a different goal from most "normal" wound healing. The recommendations are different too. – Sam I Am Feb 1 '12 at 3:34

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