Today we pierced Elanor’s left earlobe with a Braun Introcan needle and fitted via cannula a 1.2x8mm Titanium labret with a plain 3mm titanium ball attachment. With me, this piercing costs £40 these days, for comparison a gun piercing with a single titanium stud plus aftercare these days costs £30. Since I originally wrote this blog I have some small changes to my technique - I use internally threaded jewellery as standard now and the labrets I use have a much flatter back. All changes that make it even better and safer and easier to heal.
The price with me includes a small bottle of coconut and tea tree oil to be used on any dry skin that may arise around the piercing if it swells. (She has been instructed to use the oil as much or as little as she wants.) The aftercare pack also includes a friendship bracelet, a troubleshooting guide to common issues and healing, a lifetime warranty of the piercing, a car air freshener, a spare plain ball attachment for the earring, some “invisible” plastic studs to try and sneak earrings through PE lessons at school (shh) and a bag of haribo! We throw in some stick-on trial piercings for the mums to plan their next sparkles and have a stock of squishie toys to give to children who want them for the process. We’ll always give an extra bag of Haribo to any siblings (or parents!) who want them, we have juice and lollies on standby in case we need more sugar. Obviously there is also our contact details, a price list and written aftercare instructions in there too! We don’t charge extra for all that, it comes as standard with the piercing.
I looked into pricing out of interest and was surprised to find that at the chain store Elanor plans to visit, there isn’t an option of a single ear piercing with titanium. The only alternatives are stainless steel…note, that’s not surgical steel…or rhodium plated gold.
There are important differences between stainless and surgical steel:
Firstly, surgical steel is more expensive. Although surgical steel is a type of stainless steel, not all stainless steel is surgical steel. The earrings are advertised as “medical grade stainless steel” which we can only assume is to make it SOUND like it’s surgical steel, whilst not in fact claiming that it is. Sneaky.
Surgical steel is also known as 316 (or 316L depending on the carbon content) steel, a lot of body jewellery is made of 316 steel and it is sort of fine to pierce with. It contains 16% chromium, 10% nickel and 2% molybdenum. Nickel is a very common allergen, as outlined below so Psara Piercing policy is not to use it, although it’s perfectly legal. Instead I use titanium or bioflex because it is almost completely inert with only <0.1% of people allergic to it. It is drastically more expensive (at my wholesale supplier, titanium jewellery is roughly 2.5x the price of surgical steel jewellery. (edit: it got even more expensive so I changed suppliers, cut out the wholesaler and now buy directly from a factory in massive bulk which is much better quality!) And that’s SURGICAL steel, not “medical grade stainless steel” which is even cheaper) (the cads).
What the ear piercing gun system in fact uses is not surgical steel, it is grade 304 stainless steel. In practical terms it’s much the same as surgical steel - it contains roughly 8% nickel and 18% chromium. The main difference is that it is cheaper because it is more corrosive than surgical steel, especially with repeated exposure to liquid. Which isn’t necessarily the best property for a pierce of metal that you’re then instructed to douse with fluid multiple times a day.
The next option is 9ct gold rhodium plated which I personally wouldn’t be piercing with.
Apparently:
“Unless you want to turn your gold jewellery silver, plating yellow gold in rhodium is not recommended. Over time, the gold will show through the rhodium plating, gold is often bleached and made white by combining it with other metals” (Website on the internet that I forgot to make a note of and so am not crediting but I’m sure that’s fine)
So why rhodium plated gold instead of silver or steel? It’s a marketing ploy I think. It doesn’t look like gold but it has the word “gold” in it so it sounds like better quality. In fact Rhodium, although itself hypoallergenic, is very brittle and often wears off over time (especially with “repeated exposure to salt or liquid” lol). This means that a fresh piercing may be left exposed to the gold beneath which contains nickel since gold isn’t strong enough on its own. With 8-10% of children and up to 19% of adults allergic to nickel, that’s one hell of a risk. Also, it’ll cost you £50 for a single earring (the piercing is “free” of course).
Maybe I should be putting my prices up. (Edit. I did put my prices up. But then I had to register for VAT even though my overheads went up by more than my turnover did. So I charge more and make less - how is that fair? Different blog Psara, not now)
Needle piercing day 1
“Didn’t hurt much, only for a second. I couldn’t feel it afterwards at all and it was all done in a matter of minutes. Very happy with it!” Elanor
Tomorrow she’s off to get her other ear pierced with a gun! Eek!