Choosing your piercer
Your safety is of the upmost importance. It’s vital to be able to tell the difference between a good piercer and a bad piercer. In my opinion you cannot learn body piercing via books, a DVD or the types of training courses on offer today. The ultimate way to learn body piercing is from an experienced body piercer.
The Environmental Health Department will register a piercing studio after checking basic hygiene, but techniques and piercing ability are not checked. Although the registration certificate is not an indication of a piercer’s ability, it can be a good method of ascertaining how long your piercer has been piercing professionally. Please be careful as a number of unscrupulous piercers are giving certificates of competence to anyone who pays for a short course. These are not an indication of the piercer’s ability. Some unscrupulous piercers are now offering training courses as a way for them to generate income and are passing on their own bad practice to others. As piercing has become more popular, poorly qualified, and ill-trained piercers who lack morals and ethics are springing up everywhere.
In order to try and help with your search for a competent piercer, follow these guidelines.
Chat to people with good, healed piercings. Find out where they went for their piercings. Ask them about their experiences.
The internet is also a good source of information. Go to websites such as bmezine and do a search for other peoples personal experiences. Piercing forums and chat rooms can be very useful too.
Once you have an idea where you would like to go for your piercing arrange to visit the studio. Make sure the chosen piercer has a very good reputation. The studio should be a separate room from the rest of the shop. This is really important for both privacy and hygiene. The room should look and smell clean and be a relaxing atmosphere. The walls, floors and furniture must be wipe able. The room must be sparsely furnished, as clutter makes it difficult to keep clean. There must be a vacuum autoclave, Ultrasonic cleaning bath, Medical waste bin and Sharps bin. Ask to see all registration certificates from the local authority. Look at the piercer’s appearance and manner. He or she should look clean and professional. Hands and nails are a vital sign of cleanliness. Their appearance and manner should be appealing and approachable.
A good piercer will be able to answer all your questions no matter how trivial you think they are.
Make sure that you receive full piercing information and aftercare instructions verbally and in writing.
Make sure that there is an out of hour’s telephone number in case you need to get hold of your piercer for any reason.
If a situation does not feel right then make your excuses and leave!