vextera:

guardofvariansbutt:

The other day at the mall i saw a 15 year old sitting in a Claire’s piercing booth and it took every fiber in my being to not just grab her and take her to the actual, clean and sanitary and not guaranteed to fuck up your ears tattoo shop literally next door. Like I was frantic. Snakes manifested in my house

Piercing guns almost ALWAYS cause infections

They hurt more because they jam dull jewelry into your ear

Needles from a professional are designed to allow for minimum damage thus less pain.

The people working there literally have no idea what the fuck they’re doing and just guess it with a 1 hour training video vs a professional who trained under a mentor for at least a year and has a passion in the craft

They use bad metal for healings (copper, silver, etc) that can irritate ears. Surgical grade steel should be the only thing in your healing piercings

They put them on way to tight, causing swelling issues. Swelling is normal and piercings should be large enough to allow for that

They give you shit aftercare advice and cleaner (literally just buy saline solution at Spencer’s or hot topic for 8 dollars at the most and don’t touch them at all)

If done on cartilage it can LITERALLY SHATTER YOUR EARS

Please if any young girls in your family want their ears pierced take them to actual professional and don’t trust piercing guns. If a professional says your kid is too young (I.e a fucking baby) then trust their professional judgement. It costs more but you are getting essentially a art piece from a highly trained professional who knows what they’re doing vs a part time min wage employee who had 1 hour training on how to pierce ears.

I literally wrote an entire essay in college why piercing guns should be banned with pictures and my professor told me she was so interested in my topic and had no idea and even googled the topic herself out of curiosity and was horrified on the amount of damage they case

I am a licensed piercing professional and this is all sound and accurate advice. Get your piercings done by a licensed professional at a reputable shop. Not at the mall kiosk that uses piercing guns. Not by your friend who ordered a kit off of Amazon. 

Association of Professional Piercers Aftercare Guide:

https://www.safepiercing.org/aftercare.php

Okay um a few things

1) Claire’s doesn’t even do cartilage piercings

2) Claire’s used to use sterling silver but now they use gold, which is just as safe as surgical steel and easier to work with

3) Yeah some tattoo parlors are really great and know what they’re doing but some of them don’t and not everyone wants to risk that because getting a piercing at a place that doesn’t clean their equipment can cause way more damage than a little bit of swelling

4) Piercings on babies is honestly a whole other barrel of fish and ultimately I’m of the opinion that nobody should be getting piercings who can’t consent to making permanent alterations on their bodies but there are tons of places that do it including “professional” establishments so this isn’t an issue to take up with Claire’s

5) Going to doctors or other medical professionals isn’t just a little more expensive, it’s ridiculously expensive, and it’s way too much money for something that’s considered a modern day beauty standard. ofc you should still go to a doctor if you want cartilage piercings but once again Claire’s doesn’t even do those

idk this whole “a bad piercing a Claire’s is going to ruin your life” bullshit seems really overdramatic to me like… myself, my two sisters, and dozens of my friends have gotten piercings there under the age of sixteen and none of us have ever had any problems that weren’t easily resolved with proper cleaning.

There’s also a huge difference between getting your ears pierced with proper metal and sterilized tools by a person who does it for a living and ordering a piercing kit off Amazon to do it yourself in the mirror. Comparing the two is kind of asinine.

The one thing you are right about is that they WAY overcharge for “cleaning solution” and it’s better to just buy saline but pretty much every corporation pulls that kind of nonsense and it’s not like the stuff they give you will actually damage your ears or anything

okay but imagine being the guy who wrote the original kids’ book shrek and being like “huh I guess I should give DreamWorks the movie rights, it’ll make my work more popular right?” and then having to watch as the movie becomes one of the most iconic animated movies of all time to the point that nobody even realizes it was based on a book and you get absolutely zero credit for this character you created that is now a national icon. wild