What Is A Snake Eyes Piercing?

A snake eyes piercing is when you have your tongue pierced in two areas near the front of the tongue – when a person with a snake eyes piercing opens his mouth, the piercings are spread out to look like two snake eyes staring out.

Still, that’s not all there is to it. While someone who sees it may think it appears to be two unrelated piercings, a straight or curved barbell goes horizontally inside the tongue connecting the two.

What Happens During A Snake Eyes Piercing?

Here is a step-by-step rundown of what will happen when you walk through the doors of a piercing salon to get a snake eyes piercing.

This is a piercing that requires a high degree of precision so you’ll avoid any serious complications that can go along with it. To help them get the correct placement, your piercer will mark both piercing sites by using a surgical marker.

They’ll use a clamp to hold your tongue in place so you don’t wiggle it around and make them hit a vein. A hollow needle will be pulled through the tongue. Then the jewelry will be pulled through there, with the studs being on both sides of the front of your tongue and the bar being hidden inside your tongue.

Snake Eyes Piercing Pain – How Much Do They Hurt?

The thought of having a small bar and two holes put in your tongue may freak you out, but surprisingly this piercing doesn’t hurt as much as you might think it would.

To many people, it just feels like you’ve bitten your tongue rather hard when you’re chewing something.

Because pain is a relative thing, how much it hurts is going to be different on a person-to-person basis. One person may barely feel any pain, while the next may complain about it for weeks. It really depends upon how much you let pain bother you and how tough you are overall.

If you’re good at distracting yourself, trying to keep your mind off of what is about to happen may help you not notice the pain as much.

How Much Does A Snake Eyes Piercing Cost?

Not every piercing parlor will offer the snake eyes piercing. Some higher-end shops don’t offer it at all because of the risk attached to it.

When you find a place that will do it, you’ll likely pay between $30 to $70. This factors in the piercing itself, and also the cost of the jewelry. If you have expensive taste when it comes to jewelry, it’ll end up being way more than that.

Any aftercare products you end up buying will also add to the cost of the piercing.

What To Do Before Getting A Snake Eyes Piercing

Before getting your piercing done, you need to find a piercer you’re comfortable with and it should be one who practices solid hygiene. Ask him what equipment he’ll use and ask him about the sterilization of everything in his studio.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself from any unsafe practices is to use a piercer with a great reputation and to ask questions. If you don’t have a good feeling about a piercer, find another one instead.

Before deciding whether you want to greenlight your idea of getting a snake eyes piercing, you should ask your piercer to let you know about the common risks of getting it done. You’ll want to know about all the possible things that could go wrong before you have the piercing done, just in case you decide you don’t want to do it.

After you’ve educated yourself about the risks and have decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it, you’ll need to pick up some aftercare products. That way you’ll be all ready to take care of your new piercing when it’s done.

All you’ll need is some sea salt. Make sure you don’t grab normal table salt – that’s not the same thing. Sea salt is great at stimulating a healing response in your piercing.

Snake Eyes Piercing Aftercare & Cleaning Guide

Once your piercer has completed his masterpiece and you’ve reached your home after the procedure, you’re ready to start your aftercare phase.

A quick video guide to cleaning a new piercing:

While your piercer will give you a list of aftercare instructions to follow, here are the general things you should be doing to keep your piercing clean and free of any complications.

If you only follow one rule, make it this one – never touch your piercing without washing your hands first.

Even if you plan to clean it, you need to have freshly-washed hands. If you don’t, you could be creating a world of problems for yourself. You could introduce dirt or bacteria into the piercing sites and you may pay the price by developing an infection.

When you’ve finished eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, you need to swish some sea salt water around in your mouth and spit it out. Give it a few rinses with this salt water. It will help keep things clean and fresh.

To make this sea salt water, boil one cup of water and stir in one-fourth of a teaspoon of sea salt while the water is still hot. Let the water cool enough so that you can handle the temperature inside your mouth. Then let the swishing begin!

If you don’t want to make your own solution, there are plenty of ready-made products available for a good price.

The best aftercare product I’ve personally used is the After Inked Piercing Aftercare Spray. Not only is it vegan, but it’s also completely alcohol and additive-free. The solution works well on all skin types including sensitive skin, and it comes in a generously-sized mist-spraying bottle for easy application. When using it from the very start of the healing process, the spray helps to decrease healing times and aims to eliminate any lingering pain or soreness.​

While your snake eyes piercing is healing, make sure you avoid a few things that could make your life pretty unpleasant.

Make sure you don’t use any mouthwash because it will feel like you’re rinsing your mouth with liquid fire.

You can and should continue to brush your teeth as usual. You might want to consider holding off on your normal toothpaste for a few weeks if it is a super minty formula. You’ll have less discomfort if you use a toothpaste out of the kid’s section in the store. Little kids usually can’t handle strong mint so they have alternative flavors.

Stay away from spicy foods for the same reason – they’ll only taste good for a few seconds before you regret putting them in your mouth.

Finally, stay away from smoking and alcohol because both of those substances can slow down your healing. You want that piercing healed as quickly as possible so your life can get back to normal.

How Long Does A Snake Eyes Piercing Take To Heal?

Your tongue won’t be fully healed for about one to two months. During that time, especially in the beginning, you may have a lot of swelling. Plus, at the initial piercing, you can expect a little bit of blood too.

You may feel some pain for that first month, but it should start lessening after the first week or so.

Snake Eyes Piercing Infections

Getting an infection in your new piercing is always a major drag. Developing an infection in your mouth is even worse. It makes eating difficult and it looks scary. Furthermore, infections in the tongue are more dangerous than they are for other piercing locations, like your earlobe. Infections are more apt to spread when they’re located on the tongue.

The important thing to remember is that it is treatable.

If you can make it through those first two months until your piercing is fully healed without getting an infection, you’re probably in the clear. Here are some of the things you should be looking out for until then.

Swelling

It’s normal for your tongue to look abnormally thick for the first week or so after you’ve had your snake eyes piercing put in. You’ve just put your tongue through a fair amount of trauma so it will have some swelling.

Although, swelling is also one of the calling cards of infection. Make a note of it and watch to see if the swelling seems to be going down, remaining the same or is increasing. After the first few days of having your snake eyes piercing put in, the swelling should start to decrease. If you notice it ramping up at this point, you should see a doctor.

Pain

As you might imagine, you’re going to be feeling it for weeks after you’ve had a snake eyes piercing. Just remember pain doesn’t just signal an injured tongue, it can also mean that it is infected. If you have more pain than you can tolerate, it might be time to call the doctor.

If the pain seems to be getting worse and it has been longer than a week since you’ve had your piercing, it might be time to suspect an infection.

Redness

If it looks like you’ve been sucking on cherry popsicles, you could have a problem. Redness can mean an infection has developed. If you spot red lines coming out of the piercing site, that’s a clear indication of infection.

If you see that, call a doctor and get in immediately. That could signal the infection is spreading beyond the piercing site and it could become dangerous, even deadly, if you don’t seek treatment. If you already have a fever, it’s crucial you get in as soon as possible to a doctor – go to a walk-in clinic if you can’t get an appointment.

You have to act quickly to fight an infection that has started to spread. Even waiting a day for help could be disastrous.

Discolored Tongue

While a red tongue is concerning, any other color on your tongue is cause for serious alarm. Your tongue might be green, a purplish color, a yellow hue or even black looking when a serious infection has taken root. At that point, you need to consult a doctor right away.

You’ll be walking out of that doctor’s office with antibiotics to treat the infection you likely have if your tongue is discolored.

That medicine should do the trick as long as you take it until it’s gone. If for some reason you don’t think it’s helping after a couple of days, you should call your doctor and explain your concerns. He may want you to come back in to make sure the medicine is kicking in and you don’t need a second antibiotic.

Snake Eyes Piercing Risks

There are several complications with this piercing that may make a person think twice about how badly they want a snake eyes piercing. Some of the common complications include damaged teeth from the jewelry hitting them, gum erosion and potential migration of the piercing that can leave people with a bad scar on their tongue.

There’s even a risk of developing a speech impediment.

Snake Eyes Piercing Jewelry

As your piercer should know, you’ll want to use a 14-gauge barbell for your snake eyes piercing. That gives you the best chance at dodging migration.

You’ll only be able to use small jewelry in these piercings, which will give you your best snake eyes look.

Summary

A snake eyes piercing may be one of the more intimidating piercings you can have performed, but if you really love the look, you’ll probably want to brave all the risks and go ahead with it.

Life’s short and you never know what’s going to happen, so you don’t want all your decisions to be ruled by fear. If you want a snake eyes piercing, don’t let anyone talk you out of it. You know yourself better than anyone else does. You know what you’re capable of and how far you’re willing to go. Now go out there and enjoy your new look.​