Hey everyone, welcome back! So last week, we introduced a couple of piercing red flags, and today we are going to talk about a couple more. We provide expert insights and practical tips to help you make an informed decision when choosing a piercer. So let’s get started.
Sell Junk Jewelry
Red flag number one is selling junk jewelry. I mean, generally, you want to have a shop that’s going to provide either implant-grade titanium or a solid 14-karat gold, or gold of a higher carat, not plated jewelry. Solid jewelry, solid gold.
If they are selling anything else, I honestly would walk out the door. This really only applies to jewelry that you are getting pierced with. If you are stretching ears and whatnot, there are a lot of other materials that are a lot better, like glass, generally being the best thing to stretch with.
But for getting piercings, titanium, implant-grade titanium, or a solid 14-karat gold or gold of a higher carat is important.
The Cost Of Piercing And Jewelry
Red flag number two, I did mention a little bit in red flag number one. It is the cost of the piercing and jewelry. Like I said, a $20 piercing sounds great, but who knows what’s going into your body as well as what materials they may be used to pierce with, such as the needles being extremely cheap quality, not making a good cookie-cutter cut, which could lead to more trauma to the area.
Marking With Random Objects
Red flag number three is marking with random objects.
A piercer should be using some sort of skin marker or skin ink. Using a Sharpie or a pen is not very great, especially because you can only imagine how many people they are marking with that one particular Sharpie or pen.
Skin markers are the way to go. They’re generally disposable. But using a pen, a Sharpie, or some random thing from the back of their bag or backpack, you don’t want to be marked with it because it is not going to be sterile for a piercing.
Use Improper Jewelry
Red flag number four is using improper jewelry.
This can go a lot of ways. I could talk about this forever, but in general, there are certain jewelry pieces that you don’t want to use for specific piercings, such as curved barbells for surface piercings.
But most importantly, externally threaded jewelry is not going to be your friend. The bar is going to have the threading on it, and the ball is going to be hollow. There is so much bacteria that could hide in that piece. It is also a sign of low-quality jewelry. Externally threaded is not your friend. Internally threaded is.
Learn more here: How Do You Know If Piercing Is Not Professional