What is it "18 gauge body jewelry", what does it look like? Let's get it together.
As though all other measures, there's no general standard for jewellery sizes. There's a difference between the USA and other countries in measurements. The United States practices gauge (technically called the Brown and Root arrangement) and inches for its measure system, whereas most everywhere else establishes their measurements on millimeters and the metric system. Luckily, you can use our ready to hand conversion graphs below when required.
The table uses rounding; conversions are not exact.
| Gauge |
Millimeters |
Inches |
| 18g |
1.0 mm |
5/128" |
| 16g |
1.2 mm |
3/64" |
| 14g |
1.6 mm |
1/16" |
| 12g |
2 mm |
5/64" |
| 10g |
2.4 mm |
3/32" |
| 8g |
3.2 mm |
1/8" |
| 6g |
4 mm |
5/32" |
| 4g |
5 mm |
3/16" |
| 2g |
6 mm |
1/4" |
| 0g |
8 mm |
1/3" |
| 00g |
10 mm |
3/8" |
| 000g |
11 mm |
7/16" |
| |
12 mm |
1/2" |
| |
14 mm |
9/16" |
| |
16 mm |
5/8" |
| |
19 mm |
3/4" |
| |
22 mm |
7/8" |
| |
25 mm |
1" |
Importance to choose the right size
If your body jewelry is too brief, it will exacerbate the piercing area and cause puffiness. When the body jewelry is too long, troubles can take place from snagging and catching the jewelry. Most makers offer widths in 1/16" growths. Because there's no general sizing system for body jewelry, it's better to check into with your local piercer to set the right size.
For example, 18 gauge body jewelry, which is 1.0 mm in metric system, is commonly used for piercing a cartilage, ear lobe, eyebrow, lip and nose.
Body jewelry is measured by thickness and length. Length refers to the inner diameter for rings and the length for barbells. This can be stated either in inches or millimeters.
Thickness is showed in terms of gauge (ga) or millimeters (mm). This concerns to the thickness of the ring, barbell, or shaft and it matches to the thickness of your piercing. When dealing with gauge, exactly remember, the lower the gauge value, the thicker the jewelry. As you can see from the table above, 18 gauge body jewelry is the smallest size for jewelry. However we highly recommend you refer to your piercer on your body jewelry's right size.
