Lift your tongue to the roof of your mouth and look in a mirror. Two blue-ish vessels run forward either side of the middle, and a web of tissue tethers your tongue to the floor of your mouth. That view decides where a tongue piercing can go. Not the dot somebody draws on top, not the photo you brought in. How far apart your sublingual veins sit and how far forward your frenulum attaches vary enormously between people, and those two facts set the placement before anyone has an opinion about it.
Which is why the first thing that happens here is a light and a look underneath, not a jewelry conversation. If there is clear room between the veins we mark it, measure your tongue for thickness, and fit a barbell that looks absurdly long today and makes sense by tomorrow morning. If there is not enough room, we tell you, and that does happen. What goes in is implant-grade titanium and nothing else, because a tongue is a muscle that never stops moving in a warm wet mouth. Come back once the swelling drops and we will fit a shorter bar, which is the part that protects your teeth.
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Everything visible from above is decoration. This is the part that decides the piercing.
Do this now if you have a mirror handy. Tongue up against the roof of your mouth, light on. What you are looking at are the sublingual veins, one either side of the midline, running forward toward the tip. On some people they sit wide and there is an obvious clear corridor down the middle. On others they crowd in toward the centre, and that corridor narrows to something we are not willing to thread a needle through.
This is not a rare complication or a footnote about unusual anatomy. It is ordinary variation, and it is the single reason two people can walk in wanting the same piercing and leave with different answers. A bar has to pass with genuine clearance on both sides, not optimistically close to a vessel. Clearance is not a nice-to-have here.
Which is why the assessment happens before anything else, including any talk about jewelry. We look, and then we tell you what your options are, which might be a standard midline bar, might be a bar sited a bit further back where the map usually opens up, and might be nothing. Being told no about a tongue piercing is more common than the internet suggests. It is also a two-minute conversation rather than a wasted afternoon, and it costs nothing to come in and have it.
Worth knowing too: the veins are not the only thing under there. The frenulum, that web tethering your tongue down, is the other half of the picture, and it gets its own section further down because it constrains the placement in a different way.
One each side of the midline, running forward under your tongue. On some people they sit wide apart and there is plenty of room between them. On others they crowd the centre, and that changes everything about where a bar can go.
This is the measurement the whole appointment turns on. We want clear space either side of the intended channel, not a bar threaded optimistically down a narrow gap.
The web joining your tongue to the floor of your mouth. Attach it well back and we have room to work forward. Attach it far forward and the exit point gets crowded before we have started.
A tongue is a muscle, and plenty of them are very slightly asymmetric. We mark against the visible midline groove, then check that it agrees with the map underneath, because the two occasionally disagree.
We measure top to bottom before choosing a starter. Thicker tongues need longer bars, which means more swelling room to plan for and a bigger change at the downsize.
Veins too close to the centre, or a frenulum sitting too far forward, and a standard midline bar is not something we will put in you. That happens often enough to be worth saying plainly here.
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See the BVLA story →Each of these asks something different of the anatomy underneath, which is why the list is shorter for some people than others
One bar down the centre, sited in the clear space between the sublingual veins. This is the placement most anatomies will take, and the one the rest of this page assumes.
Two bars placed lateral to the midline rather than on it. That means each one has to clear a vein on its own, so venoms need noticeably more room underneath than a single centre bar does. Plenty of people who can have one cannot have these.
A horizontal bar through the tongue tip rather than a vertical one through the body. Different anatomy, different risks, and a conversation of its own. Read the <a href='/lp/snake-eyes-piercing-los-angeles/'>snake eyes page</a> before you put it on the same list as this one.
Through the web itself rather than the tongue. It only works if your frenulum has enough depth to take a small bar, which is exactly the thing we are already measuring for everything else on this page.
Same channel, sited deeper along the tongue so it shows less. The vein map usually opens up a little further back, but tongue length has to allow it and the bar is harder to keep clean where you cannot see it.
Clear next step
Two minutes with a light decides whether this is possible on you. Come and find out before anything else.
Recommended first step
Choose a facial or oral piercing appointment with clearer placement guidance.
A mouth's blood supply cuts both ways: quick healing, dramatic swelling
| Piercing Type | Location | Initial Healing | Full Healing | Pain Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tongue | Center of tongue | 4-6 weeks | 2-3 months | 4-5/10 |
| Smiley | Upper lip frenulum | 4-8 weeks | 2-3 months | 3-4/10 |
5000+ clientsFive steps, and the order matters more here than almost anywhere else we pierce
First thing that happens, before any paperwork about jewelry. Tongue to the roof of your mouth, and we look at the vein map and the frenulum with a light. Everything after this depends on what is under there.
Alcohol-free antiseptic rinse, then a dot on the visible midline. You see it in a mirror. If the mark and the map underneath disagree, the map wins and we tell you why.
Your tongue gets measured for thickness so the starter bar is chosen for you rather than pulled from a drawer. This is the number that decides how oversized day one looks.
Single-use sterile needle, its pouch broken where you can see it. Clamps and tubes come out of a hospital-grade autoclave; surfaces get an EPA-registered disinfectant between clients.
Jewelry follows the needle immediately, and it is deliberately too long. Swelling starts within the hour, and by tomorrow you will understand why the bar looked absurd today.
The part of a tongue piercing that actually changes your week
Day one is fine. That is the trap. You leave, the adrenaline is up, the tongue feels odd but manageable, and you think everybody exaggerated. Then you wake up on day two and it has doubled.
Swelling peaks somewhere around forty-eight to seventy-two hours and it is the most dramatic on the body, because a tongue is dense muscle with a very generous blood supply. That same blood supply is why the thing heals fast, so it cuts both ways. Ice chips are the single most useful thing in the house. Sleep with your head propped up the first night or two. An anti-inflammatory helps if your doctor is happy for you to take one.
Speech goes strange for about a week. Mostly it is the swelling, not the metal, and it is mostly the letters that need the tip of your tongue: s, t, l, d. You will hear it far more clearly than anyone you talk to does. Reading a page aloud to yourself twice a day sounds ridiculous and shortens the whole business noticeably, because you are retraining a muscle that is currently working around an obstacle.
Eating is a logistics problem for ten days rather than a medical one. Cold and soft, and cold is doing real work here. Yoghurt, smoothies, ice cream, chilled soup, mashed potato, egg once it has cooled. Cut everything smaller than usual and chew on your back teeth, deliberately, because biting down on a new bar is how people set themselves back a fortnight. Leave alone anything steaming, anything spicy or acidic, anything sharp-edged, and alcohol for the first few days.
Then rinse. After food, after coffee, after anything that is not water, with alcohol-free mouthwash or saline. That routine runs for the whole healing period, not just the swollen part, and it is the thing people abandon in week three when their tongue feels fine and their life gets busy.
A short list on purpose. Most of what looks good in a jewelry case has no business in a mouth.
A tongue piercing takes more mechanical abuse than anything else we do. It is soaked all day, it moves constantly, it gets knocked by teeth and food, and it lives in a mouth full of bacteria. That rules out most materials before aesthetics enter the conversation, and it rules out rings entirely, because a curved piece of metal in a straight channel through a moving muscle does nothing but irritate it.
So it is implant-grade titanium straight barbells, 14 gauge, and the interesting decisions are about length and end shape rather than material. Save gold and stone-set pieces for placements that are not being chewed on.
One fee for a standard midline bar. Anything else gets quoted after we have looked underneath.
Jewelry sold separately
Jewelry sold separately
Jewelry sold separately
Jewelry sold separately
What the $100 covers: the look underneath, the marking, the piercing itself, and the visit where we swap your starter for a bar cut to your settled tongue. The titanium barbell is priced separately. Venoms and tongue web piercings depend entirely on what your anatomy allows, so those get quoted at the consultation rather than guessed at on a webpage.
Senior Piercer Senior Piercer
Bunny Vogt, a dedicated Senior Piercer at our studio since 2019, is known for her artistic eye and expertise in oral piercings. She excels at tongue piercings and ensures clients feel comfortable throughout the process.
Founder Master Piercer
Blue Mason, our Master Piercer and studio founder since 2004, brings over two decades of oral and body piercing expertise. His precision ensures every tongue piercing is placed safely, avoiding veins for optimal healing.
The vein map tells us whether we can pierce at all. The frenulum tells us where. It is the web of tissue tethering your tongue to the floor of your mouth, everyone has one, and almost nobody has looked at their own. Here is what we are checking.
Almost every chipped tooth blamed on a tongue piercing comes back to the same thing: a starter bar that nobody ever swapped. The long bar is correct for the first fortnight and actively harmful after it. Once the swelling drops, that spare length turns the jewelry into a lever, and the lower ball starts finding the backs of your bottom front teeth every time you talk.
So come back once you have settled, usually somewhere in the second to fourth week, and we will measure the calm tongue and fit a bar cut to it. Two minutes, included, and it is the single most useful thing you will do for this piercing. If you are a habitual clicker we will put a flat disc on the underside instead of a ball. And if you were pierced elsewhere and were never offered a downsize at all, come in anyway and we will size you properly regardless of who did the original.
Book AppointmentDay one feels manageable and misleads everyone. Swelling peaks at forty-eight to seventy-two hours, and yes, it can look like your tongue has doubled. Ice chips constantly, head propped up at night, cold soft food, and rinse after everything that is not water. The lisp is at its worst here and it is the swelling talking, not the metal.
The tongue calms down and the bar you are wearing is now oversized for it. This is your downsize window, and skipping it is how enamel gets chipped two years later. Food goes back to normal in this stretch. The rinsing does not, which is exactly when people quietly stop doing it.
The channel finishes internally well after the surface feels done. Once you are there, ends can be changed for something smaller or flatter if the current ones annoy you. Come to us for the first change and we will show you the knack, because dropping a ball down a plughole is a rite of passage nobody enjoys.
Open 8am to 8pm, seven days, and you can walk in. What you cannot do is skip the look underneath, so plan around that rather than around our opening hours.
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5000+ clients2625 Main Street in Santa Monica, open 8am to 8pm every day. If you are booking the piercing rather than just the assessment, come having eaten properly, because arriving on an empty stomach is what makes people go grey in the chair. Have something cold and soft waiting at home for that evening.
Santa Monica, CA
Apollo was founded by Blue Mason in 2007. With 20+ years of body art experience, Blue brings master-level expertise to every piece. Read Blue's story →
Mostly asked with a mirror in one hand, which is the right way to ask them
Because that is where the decision gets made. Lift your tongue to the roof of your mouth in front of a mirror and you will see two blue-ish vessels running forward either side of the middle, plus the web of tissue joining your tongue to the floor of your mouth. Those are the sublingual veins, and how far apart they sit varies enormously between people. A barbell has to pass between them with real clearance on both sides. Everything visible from the top is decoration. The map underneath sets the spot.
Then a standard midline bar is not safe on you, and we say so. Sometimes there is room slightly further forward or further back along the midline and we can work with that. Sometimes there is not, and the honest answer is no. It is not a common outcome, but it is not rare either, and it is a far better conversation to have with a light in your mouth than afterwards.
You can ask, and your frenulum usually answers for us. If the web of tissue under your tongue runs a long way forward, it crowds the exit point, and the bar ends up resting against it. That is uncomfortable and it heals badly. A shorter frenulum attaching well back gives us far more room to work with. So the placement you want and the placement your anatomy allows are two separate things, and the second one wins.
Worse than you are imagining, and it peaks around day two or three. A tongue is a muscle with a generous blood supply, which is why oral piercings heal quickly and also why they balloon. Ice chips genuinely help. So does keeping your head propped up the first night. The starter bar is long precisely so all that swelling has somewhere to go, which is why it looks comically oversized on day one.
For a few days, yes, and it is mostly the swelling rather than the metal. The tip of your tongue does more of the work in speech than people realise, and yours will be busy avoiding new hardware for the first week. Most people sound normal again well before the fortnight is out. Reading aloud to yourself at home speeds it up, which sounds silly and works.
Because the one you are wearing was sized for a swollen tongue. Once the swelling drops, that extra length becomes a lever. The lower ball starts knocking against the back of your bottom front teeth, and the top ball sits high enough to catch the uppers. Chipped enamel from tongue piercings almost always traces back to a long bar that nobody ever swapped. Come back once things settle and it takes two minutes.
Not in a tongue. Implant-grade titanium straight barbells, and that is not a sales position. A tongue is in constant motion in a warm, wet, bacterially busy environment, and it takes more mechanical punishment than any other piercing on the body. Titanium stands up to that without reacting. Save the more interesting materials for placements that do not get chewed on.
Cold and soft. Yoghurt, smoothies, ice cream, chilled soup, mashed potato, scrambled egg once it has cooled down. The cold is doing real work, not just being gentle. Leave alone anything hot enough to steam, anything spicy or acidic, anything with sharp edges, and alcohol for the first few days because it stings and thins your blood. Rinse with alcohol-free mouthwash after every single thing that is not water.
$100 for the piercing service. Jewelry is priced separately, and for a tongue that means an implant-grade titanium straight barbell. The visit where we shorten the bar once your swelling has settled is part of the deal rather than an extra.
Completely different piercing. A standard tongue piercing is one bar passing vertically through the middle of the tongue, well back from the tip, sited around the vein map. Snake eyes is a single bar running horizontally through the tongue tip, joining the two halves, and it carries a heavier and quite separate set of risks. The two get lumped together as tongue piercings and really should not be.
Apollo sits at 2625 Main St in Santa Monica, a block from the beach and easy to reach from anywhere on the Westside. Here's roughly how long it takes to get to us for tattoos and piercings:
There's metered street parking on Main Street and Ocean Park Blvd, plus a public lot on 2nd Street a short walk away. We recommend giving yourself an extra 10 minutes to park on weekends — Main Street gets busy with the farmers market and beach traffic. If you're running late, text us at the studio and we'll hold your appointment.
Two minutes, a light, and an honest answer about whether your anatomy allows it.
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