316LVM surgical steel or grade 23 titanium N/A Lobes, lips, and more! Looking to stretch your piercings? Pair these Spiral Tail Tapers 14g - 10g with our to make sizing up a breeze! Not sure how to stretch safely? Learn more . A taper is a piece of jewelry that expands from your starting size to the next size up. It is extremely important while stretching with tapers to only go up one gauge at a time and wait for one to three months between stretches. Listen to your body: if it hurts you’re going too fast. It is also very important that the tapers are smooth and non-porous. Any nicks and ridges in the material can harbour bacteria, encouraging infection. This grade of steel is hypoallergenic because it is low carbon vacuum melted. This process sucks out the nickel from the metal. Since nickel is one of the most common causes of metal allergies, this steel is hypoallergenic. Please note: this process cannot remove all the nickel. As a result, a small number of people react to 316LVM surgical steel. If this is you, we recommend the blackline titanium option. Otherwise, steel is great for people with metal allergies. Titanium is hypoallergenic and bio-compatible. Its often used in medical implants because of these traits. Blackline is titanium carbide as a physical vapour deposition (PVD) coating. The titanium carbide is deposited onto the titanium as a vapour. This coating is hypoallergenic. The rainbow tone is created by anodization. This is when you dip the titanium electrolyte solution and zap until you get the colour you want. This process doesn't affect the hypoallergenic status. The gold option is ion-plated. Ion plating is more durable and therefore lasts longer than traditional plating. The plating may irritate metal allergies. Please stretch cartilage (nostril, upper ear piercings, tragus, etc) with tapers. Cartilage must be dermal punched for that stretched look. Show us what you chose to stretch with your Spiral Tail Tapers 14g - 10g with #BodyModsFamous on Instagram. We LOVE seeing our jewelry out in the real world. Finally, don't forget to follow us on and for updates on new jewelry, product info, sales, and more.