You can find navel rings with a wide selection of barbell styles and decorative accents.  The most common, and least expensive, are still the non-dangling, but that doesn’t mean they’re boring. You can purchase a navel ring with a variety of gems and jewels, colors and shapes, and even licensed logos and brands like professional sports teams and Playboy.

The dangling belly buttons are becoming more creative, too.  They’re no longer always a plain jewel hanging from a plain linked barbell. You can get dangling chains, gems, jewels, metal shapes and more.  If you’re interested, there are also belly button rings attached to chains and ropes which can wrap around the waist or link on to other body piercings.  The dangling portion can be less than ¼ of an inch long all the way up to 1 ½ inches long or more.

There are even newer and unseen styles available today. In the past few years, the “reverse navel ring” has skyrocketed in popularity. This style of navel ring enters the belly button in the same way, but instead of a decorative piece hanging down from the bottom part of the barbell, it extends from the top. It will typically be stationary, rather than free-moving, but this is a creative way to expand your navel ring style.

You could also look for a “spiral navel ring” if you want something a little more daring. They don’t dangle but they are a curved barbell either.  They spiral and twist, just like the name says. The design features a 14 GA or 16 GA barbell that spirals, rather than curves. It appears to be like a section of a spring, but it doesn’t expand and contract. They usually have two balls on the end in decorative colors and sometimes the entire ring is made from titanium, which comes in a variety of colors.

Never again should you feel like you can only choose from two styles of navel rings.  No matter what your style and taste dictates, you can easily find a belly button rings that’s right for you.

Tongue Ring
The traditional tongue ring is a 14 or 16 gauge straight barbell that penetrates directly vertical through the center of the tongue.  The web tongue ring is generally a 14 or 16 gauge shorter, curved barbell (similar to and eyebrow ring) that sits horizontal through the “web” under the tongue.

Both of these piercings take a fairly short amount of time to heal and can be ready to change in as little as 4 weeks.  Most states require age 16 or age 18 for piercing.

Industrial
The industrial is a piercing that penetrates two parts of the outer ear.  It can be done in various places but both holes are generally along the cartilage of the ear and are 14 or 16 gauge.  A ball is secured to each end and this piercing takes 4 to 6 months to heal.

Labret/Monroe
Although the labret and monroe are two different piercings, they are a similar concept.  They each pierce the area directly around the mouth or lips.  Typically the Monroe is on the top lip, off to the side (like the infamous Marilyn Monroe mole) and the labret is on the bottom, usually in the center. These piercings go directly through the lip and use a unique type of ring.  They are 16 gauge and very short; the back is a flat surface that can rest against the gum or teeth and the outside is a ball or decorative gem.

Surface Rings
Surface piercings are exactly what the name implies; they are on the surface.  They do not penetrate one spot on the skin and come out on another, rather they stick into the skin and do not come out the other side.   They stay in the body by using a “fishhook” design.  That is, they can move down into the skin, but as you pull out of the skin, it will be stopped, or stuck, by the hook.  In most cases these rings are professionally removed or changed.

Traditional Non-Dangling

These belly button rings are the oldest, and probably the most popular.  They’re kind of like an old standard of the body jewelry industry.  They are most commonly made with a curved barbell, sometimes referred to as a banana-bell. Traditional non-dangling belly button rings are usually 14 gauge and the balls are sometimes decorated with gems and jewels.

Dangling

Dangling belly button rings can vary from just a short charm to a long chain that wraps around the wearers waste.  They include anything from flags to jewels and even words or personalized holographic pictures.

Reverse

This kind of belly ring is sometimes difficult to understand, especially when customers only see a picture online.  They’re actually quite simple to explain, however.  They use the same gauge and style as the non-dangling ring and dangling ring, except that the gems or decorations extend from the top ball rather than the bottom.  The belly button ring extends in front of the navel, rather than dangling below it.

Spiral

Spiral navel rings are a fairly new style but have become very popular.  They are non dangling but they are twisted into the piercing rather than being pushed straight through.

By T.C. Kuster

Historically, the Aztecs, the Haida, Kwkiutul, Mayas of Central America and the Tlinglit tribes in the American Northwest had customs of body piercing.  It was often used as a form of self sacrifice or for religious reasons in these cultures.  Tongue rings were thought to be especially holy during these times because it was a way to draw blood to please the deities.

In Native American tribes, tongue piercings and other body jewelry were considered a way to bring people nearer to their gods through bleeding.  Aztec and Mayan tribes reportedly pierced their septum, a part of the nose, to appear fierce and intimidating to their enemies.  Rather than the modern day steel jewelry, they used bones, tusks and feathers as body jewelry.

Today, the tongue ring, as well as other body piercings are primarily for decorative reasons.  They are a means of self expression and personal decoration. The jewelry used is typically made from surgical steel and while it is often referred to as a tongue “ring,” it does not resemble the circular shape that it might imply.  In reality, it is a straight or curved barbell with a ball screwed to each end.  The ball on the bottom is often much smaller and used only to prevent the barbell from slipping out.  The ball on the top is used for decoration and expression

Tongue piercing is most popularly done with straight barbell. 14 Ga is the most common gauge used for tongue piercing. In order to give room to the swelling, the early length of the pierced barbell should be at least 3/4″. Once the tongue piercing has been healed, it can be replaced to a shorter barbell of 9/16″(14mm) which is the most common size. Wearing a shorter barbell after the piercing is healed is suggested.

Barbell fashion of body jewelry is composed of a straight bar and with a bead on each end, one or both beads unscrewable for removal and/or replacing of the beads. Often one of the beads is fixed, either via epoxy or welding, so that only one bead is used to fix or remove the jewelry. Barbell threads are mostly right-handed.

There are roughly about 5 kinds of barbells for body jewelry.  The internally threaded barbells are slightly more costly than externally threaded barbells as there will be additional machining and labor included. It is also considered superior to the external barbells as it is less likely to cause damage or irritation especially at the time of piercing. An internally threaded barbell has a bead with a receiving tube machine into it which connects with a threaded post extending from the center.

Although the externally threaded barbells have become less common, the internally threaded barbells have increased in popularity. It is named so because shaft of the bar has threads at both ends to allow beads with the receiving threads to be attached to the tongue ring.

Named because of the curvature, curved barbells can also be known as a navel curve. It is mechanically same to straight barbells instead of that they are curved. Curvature on a curved barbell can range from about straight to circular, with some barbells basically being spiral, with the ends overlapping but separated to allow the insertion
of the jewelry. A variation on this design is a J-bar, a slightly curved barbell (sometimes referred to as a bananabell or banana barbell) with a 90 degree bend near one end, used in verticalnavel piercings to position the decorative  end of the body jewelry more appropriately. They can be either internally threaded or externally threaded.

Circular barbells, also known as horseshoe barbells are used in some types of piercings. They are named so due to their shape.

In all surface piercings, surface bars are used. Barbells for surface piercing have a pair of 90 degree bends in the same direction, so they can be used for surface piercing. Because of this design the pressure that would be affected by other body jewelry designs that participate to disallow in healing surface piercings is minimized.