Body jewelry sizes express the thickness of an item of
body jewelry, using one of several possible systems.
Background
Items of
body piercing jewelry have an important common factor: the diameter of the part of the item of jewelry where it will rest in the piercing site. With the wearing of European-traditional kinds of
earrings, that thickness is not an issue, because jewelry is made to use only thin wire for support, and the wearer need only have a narrow piercing hole to accommodate it. But with body jewelry, there is a wide variety of possible sizes, and wearers generally want jewelry that is the same size as their piercing site. Some wearers want increasingly larger sizes to deliberately
stretch the hole. So that wearers can choose the size they want, there are standards for body jewelry sizes, used by jewelry makers and sellers.
Generally, the system of gauge-and-inches is used: In gauge notation, jewelry less than ″ thick is ''typically'' measured in a system originally devised for measuring wire thickness. A gauge number denotes a thickness on a standardized scale which, for most purposes, starts at 20g (0.812 mm thick— often used for the posts for
nose studs), and increases in thickness (as the gauge number ''decreases'') to 0g, then 00g, and rarely goes any further as these thicknesses come closer and closer to ″. From there, sizes of ″ and thicker are always specified in fractions of an inch. (But note that sizes ''thinner than'' ″ are also sometimes specified as fractions of an inch; see the Conversion Table to see how these interleave with gauges.)
Even though the gauge system was originally meant for wire, it is now used regardless of whether an item of body jewelry is an actual wire, or is instead a wooden plug, a plastic ring, or any other
material
Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geolo ...
.
The alternative to using the gauge-and-inches system is to specify the thickness in millimeters.
Conversion table
Usage of the systems
Some jewelry makers or sellers who express the size of their jewelry in millimeters, may also list the nearest approximate gauge-and-inches measurements for each item.
[As supporting examples for the claim about just-gauge, metric-and-gauge, and just-metric: Just in gauge-inches]
an example item at Tribalectic
. With metric ''and'' gauge
an example item at Body Jewelleryshop
Just in metric
an
Using millimeters as the primary notation is most common in Europe and Australia.
Units and notation
Discussions of gauge in this article use the
American Wire Gauge (AWG) scale. Some jewelry may still use the obsolete and significantly different
Standard Wire Gauge (SWG) scale instead. Both AWG and SWG express sizes as a gauge, but the numbers are different. For example, AWG 12g is 2.1 mm, but SWG 12g is 2.6 mm. AWG 8g happens to be the same as SWG 10g. AWG 000g is 10.4 mm, but SWG 000g is 9.4 mm.
In most discussions of body jewelry, sizes are specified by giving the gauge, usually abbreviated by the suffix "g", the same symbol as used for
gram
The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram.
Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to th ...
s: "12g". The article
American Wire Gauge system, section "Nomenclature and abbreviations in electrical distribution" shows other notations for gauge, but most are rarely used for expressing body jewelry sizes, except "ga." as in "12 ga.", which is used occasionally.
See also
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Jewelry wire gauge
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Earring
An earring is a piece of jewelry attached to the ear via a piercing in the earlobe or another external part of the ear (except in the case of clip earrings, which clip onto the lobe). Earrings have been worn by people in different civilizations ...
*
Body piercing
Body piercing, which is a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewelry may be worn, or where an implant could be inserted. The word ''piercing'' can refer to ...
*
Body piercing jewelry
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Body piercing materials
In modern Western body piercing, a wide variety of materials are used. Some cannot be autoclaved, and others may induce allergic reactions, or harbour bacteria. Certain countries, such as those belonging to the EU, have legal regulations specifyi ...
*
Wire
Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
Wire is co ...
*
Wire gauge comparison chart
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IEC 60228
IEC 60228 is the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)'s international standard on ''conductors of insulated cables''. the current version is Third Edition 2004-11
Among other things, it defines a set of standard wire cross-sectional a ...
, the metric wire-size standard used in most parts of the world.
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American wire gauge, used primarily in the US and Canada
*
Standard wire gauge, the British imperial standard BS3737, superseded by the metric.
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Stubs Iron Wire Gauge
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Circular mil, Electrical industry standard for wires larger than 4/0.
*
Number 8 wire, a term used in the New Zealand vernacular
External links
SteelNavel.com Body Piercing Jewelry Size Reference— illustrating the different ways that size is measured on different kinds of jewelry
Notes
{{United States Customary Units
Wire gauges
Customary units of measurement in the United States
Body piercing jewellery