body piercing jewelry

Piercing guns have been a stain on the piercing community since the seventies. The earlier designs were simple spring-loaded devices that fire a stud into a backing both loaded into the gun’s apparatus. The early designs are nearly impossible to clean properly and to my knowledge haven’t seen any decent improvements.

The worst things about piercing guns are the people using them. Not that using a piercing gun makes you evil or anything but if you prefer a gun then you’re probably untrained. Any decent piercing studio should have professionals that could do a quality ear piercing with their eyes closed, hung over on a Sunday.

Earring shops at malls, staffed with people that have little knowledge of piercing or sterilization are the most likely to use a gun. It’s from these guns that you’re most likely to get an infection. Hepatitis and other diseases have been linked to piercing guns due to their inability to keep sterile. Only recently have piercing gun manufacturers begun designing cartridge systems that address the sterilization issue. The cartridge that comes is the only part that should come in contact with the client, if the cartridge works properly that is. Cartridges are then disposed of between uses.

Also leading to infection was the gun’s method of “firing” the stud through the ear, on the upper ear it often led to shattered cartilage and other painful problems. The latest designs force the piercing stud through the tissue by squeezing a handle that drives the stud. While this may be all right for ears it is certainly not recommended for any other parts of your body. It seems that piercing gun manufacturers are pushing ahead anyway and marketing their guns for general body piercing.

Body piercing should be done by a pro in a studio with an autoclave and proper piercing needles and quality jewelry. I have to say that I’m extremely disturbed by the thought of someone getting their navel pierced with a gun. No trained pro would dream of using a gun over doing it by hand. This said, anyone that chooses to use a gun must be untrained. Why you would let someone with little knowledge of piercing near your navel with a piercing gun is well beyond me.

Another thing that worries me about guns is the jewelry used. For larger gauge body piercing, a hollow needle is used and then the jewelry is placed in the hole. This isn’t pretty but it’s much better that sending something with a sharp point into the skin then stretching and tearing the wound as you push the tapered edges of the stud through. Have a look at this body piercing stud designed for a piercing gun:

Notice the threads on the outside next to the bevel. These are to be pushed through a new wound. This is truly frightening. Also, when a new piercing swells it has a tendency to get caught in the external threads common to cheap piercing jewelry. Good jewelry has internal threads that don’t come into contact with the wound, key feature.

Over all if you’re just getting a standard earlobe piercing with a small gauge stud then a piercing gun isn’t too bad so long as it uses a cartridge system. For anything else, get a pro and spare your some health risks and pain.