I got my cartilage pierced yesterday at a shop in the outlets by my city. They gave me aftercare instructions and specifically recommended dial antibacterial soap to clean around the area and a “saline wash” as well. I went to target and bought just that, got home and researched the products I bought, and realized dial soap is no longer recommended and for some reason I bought contact solution thinking it was what they were talking about and not a saline wound wash because they didn’t specify. After making another trip to town and reading ingredients on bottles for a while I came home with a saline wound wash and Johnson and Johnson baby wash. I also plan on going and purchasing non-iodized salt to make the salt and water solution to soak my ear in for 5 minutes. Right not it is 4:54 am and I woke up in the middle of the night after falling asleep and forgetting to clean it on the first night, so I got up and gently put some foam of the baby wash around my ear and tried to clean the jewelry a little and surrounding area. I poured water on it out of a cup to rinse, and tried to dry it with a paper towel and Q-tip. Then I sprayed some of the saline wound wash on the piercing and also dried that up with a paper towel and Q-tip. At this point I’m just afraid I’m not doing something right. It’s still pretty sore and I am trying not to move the jewelry at all. I’m afraid that I’m not cleaning the area good enough because it does hurt and I can’t get it good enough or that because it hurts I’m not drying it enough. My routine would be to wash the surrounding area and the bar with the baby soap, rinse it off, soak in the non-iodized salt mixture for 5 minutes, and then use the saline wound spray and dry it the best I can and do this every morning and night. Does this sound good? If anyone has any tips I would love to hear them. This is my first piercing outside of my two ear lobe piercings and I’m super scared of infection and just not taking care of it right.😬