How to Buy the Best Belly Rings for You

There are many types of body piercings that can be traced back to primitive cultures, but belly button piercings are a more recent phenomenon. Belly rings began gaining popularity in mainstream culture in the early 1990s, after two supermodels debuted theirs on the runway. Now belly rings are considered one of the sexiest types of body jewelry a woman can wear!

Painful Pleasures offers one of the world’s largest selections of belly rings, with more length, gauge and style options than any other online retailer. Best of all, we sell our belly rings to the public at wholesale prices. With hundreds upon hundreds of belly button ring options to choose from, though, where’s a girl to start? Here are some tips for choosing the best belly rings for you and your style.

Set a Budget

Belly rings come in a wide range of prices. You can buy inexpensive belly rings made of good materials, like surgical steel and titanium, that have nice charms, like the jeweled owl belly ring shown here. A belly ring like that may look quite intricate and expensive, but it’s only a few dollars. If you want to spend a little more money to get something a bit fancier that’s still reasonably priced, you might consider a reverse belly ring or a navel shield with a slightly more complex design than the average charmed belly button ring. Even with a belly ring in one of those styles, you’re still likely to pay less than $10. If you want a really special belly ring, consider purchasing a yellow or white gold custom belly button ring. Our custom belly rings may cost you anywhere from $40 to several hundred dollars, depending on the types of stones you select and the intricacy of the design you choose.

Whatever your price range, we have belly rings that will fit your budget and meet your needs. The best thing to do is to decide what material and style belly ring you want, and then sort the options within that category by price using the drop-down menu on the right side of the screen. Just scroll down to the first row of products in the Belly Rings section of our site, and select “price” in the “Sort by” menu. You’ll find this menu in each of the belly ring subcategories listed at the top of the Belly Rings main page, too.

Consider Your Material Options

Belly rings come in a variety of materials. The most common materials used to make belly button rings include surgical stainless steel, titanium, silver, white gold, yellow gold, and PTFE/BioFlex. (Note: Although many belly rings have acrylic charms dangling from them, you won’t often find a belly ring with an acrylic shaft.)

If you have sensitivity to certain metals, then you should go with one of the 3 most hypo-allergenic options: titanium belly rings, surgical steel belly rings or PTFE belly button rings. While we do offer a nice assortment of both titanium and PTFE belly rings, the majority of our navel rings come with surgical stainless steel barbells. If you visit our main Belly Rings section, you’ll see all the cute belly button rings we offer. To see if one you like has a surgical steel post, just click through to the full product details and look for the material(s) listed in the blue info box on the left side of the page, below the product image.

If you don’t have a metal allergy (which is typically just to cheap jewelry with a high nickel content, by the way–i.e. not the jewelry you’ll find on Painfulpleasures.com), then you can buy belly rings made of any material that you want, including gold belly rings and silver belly button rings.

Decide What Style of Belly Ring Suits Your Personality

Are you an animal lover? Do you have a penchant for pink things? Maybe you love heart jewelry? No matter what your favorite things are in life, there’s a belly ring with charms and stones that reflect your passions!

Below are a few navel ring theme ideas to get you started, but these are far from the only belly button ring styles we offer. You can use the search box in our store to look for other belly ring styles not listed here.

Owl Belly Rings – Owl jewelry has been trending for awhile now, so we’ve picked up an assortment of owl belly rings for girls who go ‘Oh!’ for owls.

Feather Belly Rings – Feather jewelry is also on the rise, just as owl jewelry is, so we offer a selection of dangle feather belly rings–some made of real feathers and others made with cute little feather charms.

Heart Belly Button Rings – Do you heart everything with hearts on it? If so, our belly rings featuring heart-shaped charms are the perfect type of belly jewelry for you!

Star Belly Rings – You’ll be as bright as the twinkling night stars when you wear one of our sweet belly rings with star-charms.

Ocean-Themed Navel Rings – For nautical Nellies, we offer a variety of belly rings featuring deep sea charms, like starfish belly rings, seahorse belly rings and anchor belly rings.

Pink Belly Rings – If you love all things pink, then you’ll love our selection of pink belly rings featuring sparkly pink gems, pink charms and other pink accents.

Flower Belly Button Rings – Flower power is back! Add a hip touch to your wardrobe with lovely flower-studded belly rings in bright colors.

Antique-Like Belly Rings – If you love old school, vintage jewelry, then you’re sure to like these vintage and opal belly rings.

Zodiac Belly Rings – If you’re a child of your sign, why not show it off by wearing your zodiac sign on your navel ring?

To search for more styles of belly button rings, visit our Retail Store and enter a keyword or keyword phrase in the search box in the top-right corner of the screen. You can also select a category from our main Belly Rings section.

Choosing the Right Belly Ring Size

The most common belly ring size is 14 gauge with a 7/16″-long bent barbell. However, that’s not the only size available. We offer belly rings with 12 gauge and 16 gauge barbells, too, as well as customizable belly rings that you can get in other sizes. If you need a longer or shorter barbell, that’s not a problem either. Even if the belly ring you like most doesn’t come with the perfect length barbell for you, you can still buy it and then modify it with a separate bent barbell shaft in the best length for you. To learn more about modifying your belly rings to fit you better, check out our Modifying Your Belly Ring guide.

Note: Belly rings, like other surface piercings, are highly prone to migration and rejection. By wearing a heavier-gauge barbell, you can reduce the chances of your piercing migrating out over time. If you were pierced at 14g, you can slowly stretch to 12g or even 10g once your piercing is well healed. If you’re thinking about getting your belly pierced, ask if you can be pierced with a heavier-gauge needle (preferably at least 12g).

If you’d rather not worry about barbell lengths when shopping for belly piercing jewelry, consider a captive bead ring as an alternative to a traditional belly ring. Spiral jewelry and even circular barbells can be used as navel rings, too.

Interested in Seeing All the Belly Rings We Offer?

If you’re ready to start shopping and want to peruse all belly rings or belly rings by type instead of by the themes listed above, check out our Belly Rings section as a whole, or shop a specific category like…

Belly Piercing Resources

In addition to the shopping pages listed above, you’ll find some great belly button piercing information on our site, plus belly piercing pictures and more.

If you want information about the belly button piercing process, belly button piercing healing times or navel piercing care, read over our The Belly Button Piercing & Healing Process article.
In our forum, we have a section dedicated to navel piercings where you can read about other people’s experiences, post your own story or tips, or submit a question for our moderators and other community members to answer.
For more helpful navel piercing and belly ring information, visit our Belly Piercing Resources guide.