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Body jewelry sizes express the thickness of an item ofbody jewelry, using one of several possible systems.
Items ofbody 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 ofearrings, 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 deliberatelystretch 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 than1⁄2″ thick istypically 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 fornose studs), and increases in thickness (as the gauge numberdecreases) to 0g, then 00g, and rarely goes any further as these thicknesses come closer and closer to1⁄2″. From there, sizes of1⁄2″ and thicker are always specified in fractions of an inch. (But note that sizesthinner than1⁄2″ 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 othermaterial.
The alternative to using the gauge-and-inches system is to specify the thickness in millimeters.
| gauge (AWG) | diameter | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| inches fractional | inches decimal | millimeters | |
| 20 | · | 0.0320 | 0.812 |
| 18 | · | 0.0403 | 1.024 |
| 16 | · | 0.0508 | 1.291 |
| · | 1⁄16 | 0.0625 | 1.588 |
| 14 | · | 0.0641 | 1.628 |
| 12 | · | 0.0808 | 2.05 |
| 10 | · | 0.1019 | 2.58 |
| · | 1⁄8 | 0.1250 | 3.18 |
| 8 | · | 0.1285 | 3.26 |
| 6 | · | 0.1620 | 4.12 |
| · | 3⁄16 | 0.1875 | 4.76 |
| 4 | · | 0.204 | 5.19 |
| · | 1⁄4 | 0.250 | 6.35 |
| 2 | · | 0.258 | 6.54 |
| · | 5⁄16 | 0.312 | 7.94 |
| 0 | · | 0.325 | 8.25 |
| 00 | · | 0.365 | 9.27 |
| · | 3⁄8 | 0.375 | 9.52 |
| 000 | · | 0.410 | 10.40 |
| · | 7⁄16 | 0.438 | 11.11 |
| 0000 | · | 0.460 | 11.68 |
| · | 1⁄2 | 0.500 | 12.70 |
| · | 9⁄16 | 0.562 | 14.29 |
| · | 5⁄8 | 0.625 | 15.88 |
| · | 11⁄16 | 0.688 | 17.46 |
| · | 3⁄4 | 0.750 | 19.05 |
| · | 13⁄16 | 0.812 | 20.6 |
| · | 7⁄8 | 0.875 | 22.2 |
| · | 15⁄16 | 0.938 | 23.8 |
| · | 1 | 1.000 | 25.4 |
| · | 1+1⁄16 | 1.062 | 27.0 |
| · | 1+1⁄8 | 1.125 | 28.6 |
| · | 1+3⁄16 | 1.188 | 30.2 |
| · | 1+1⁄4 | 1.250 | 31.8 |
| · | 1+5⁄16 | 1.312 | 33.3 |
| · | 1+3⁄8 | 1.375 | 34.9 |
| · | 1+7⁄16 | 1.438 | 36.5 |
| · | 1+1⁄2 | 1.500 | 38.1 |
| · | 1+9⁄16 | 1.562 | 39.7 |
| · | 1+5⁄8 | 1.625 | 41.3 |
| · | 1+11⁄16 | 1.688 | 42.9 |
| · | 1+3⁄4 | 1.750 | 44.4 |
| · | 1+13⁄16 | 1.812 | 46.0 |
| · | 1+7⁄8 | 1.875 | 47.6 |
| · | 1+15⁄16 | 1.938 | 49.2 |
| · | 2 | 2.000 | 50.8 |
Using millimeters as the primary notation is most common in Europe and Australia.
Discussions of gauge in this article use theAmerican Wire Gauge (AWG) scale. Some jewelry may use the significantly differentStandard Wire Gauge (SWG) scale instead, particularly jewelry fromCanada or theUnited Kingdom where the SWG scale is used.[1] 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 forgrams: "12g". The articleAmerican 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.