Glass
Glass is a common piercing material which has been used for thousands of years. For example, earplugs made of glass have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs.
If correctly shaped and manufactured, glass can be an functional material: comfortable to wear, tough, and safe for the body. However, cheaper glass beads that are not covered in a metal shell can easily break into shards. If you drop glass jewelry on the floor, you probably won't be able to use it again. Also if you have a cheap bead in a tongue piercing and accidentally chew on it, it can break into tiny shards and cause lacerations.
It is possible to sterilize glass in a steam-autoclave but the heat may cause cracking in cheaper products.
Read more about this topic: Body Piercing Materials
Famous quotes containing the word glass:
“We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observed of all observers.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be.... What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them.... There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)