One of the most over looked subjects by clients
I often get asked by customers where they can buy jewellery from online, (price shoppers) yeah it's great saving a few bucks in life, but trust me when it comes to jewellery that's to be worn in your body its a bad idea! There is no real way of telling what quality your getting when you order online and that's if you even know what would suit/fit your piercing. I would personally avoid it, you may be putting your body at huge risk. It may be cheap but have you heard of the old saying “you get what you pay for”, It's also worth to mentioning to avoid chain stores that sell cheap jewellery, by “cheap” I mean it could be expensive cheaply made jewellery!
Believe it or not Jewellery has a big role with how well your piercing heals and its general long term health. I have dealt with a lots of old piercing that “all of a sudden are very angry” or even “infected” which in most cases is caused by changing to poor quality or ill-fitting jewellery and all that is needed to re-heal the piercing is to change the jewellery back to something more suitable or higher quality design/material.
It's worth visiting a reputable Piercing studio, who can help you choice and correctly size and of course fit some amazing jewellery that will be right for you and your body, We won’t sell you something that is not suited for your piercing just to make money.
Whilst talking about price shopping, many studios get a lot of calls, emails, messages asking how much a piercing is, they then phone everywhere until they find the cheapest price and go there, this also can be a bad Idea! Being a studio owner I can tell you that everything we do is expensive and its all in the aid of making your piercing safer and better, everything we use from, needles (not just any cheap needles), sterile gauze, non sterile gloves, sterile gloves, instruments, medical grade disinfectant, sterilizing everything, and even the disposal of all the above….. the list is endless and it all costs money! Do you really want to save a few quid, not knowing what corners they may be cutting in order to give you a piercing cheaper?
"A piercing is going inside your body and isn't a cheap t-shirt that can be binned in a couple of weeks time because it has a stain"
I’m sure every Piercer in the world at some point (probably thousands of times over) has had somebody come in and say that they had their piercing for (insert length of time) and now all of a sudden it is causing problems/discomfort, to then discover they have changed their Jewellery to something of poor/incorrect fitting/unsafe quality.
I only have two images to hand of poorly designed pieces of jewellery that i have removed.
In this picture we can see many issues!
Red arrow - pointing to the one size fits all aspect of the jewellery.
Black arrow - you can clearly see the rough edge that would be cutting into the back of your piercing.
Overall you can see the design is an issue, dark brown areas are scabs stuck in the jewellery, who knows what unsafe metal this was made out of in the first place!
So what's wrong with this piece?
As you can see in the red circle, there is a collar like piece of metal which attaches the jewellery front, to the post - this can be a problem as it may cut into the front of your piercing. We also have an issue with the length of bar as it is fixed to the front with only having the ball at the rear removable, This could be too long or short for your piercing, causing embedding or irritation to your ear. If you look at the picture for anymore than two seconds you can see the metal is tarnished, pitted, and not highly polished, leaving us assuming the metal is also a low grade material!
Worth noting that the size of the jewellery front is not suited for many location of piercings.
What makes bad jewellery? (in short)
1 - Low grade metals with a high nickel content
2- Poor polish finish.
3 - Improper fit, too thin, too tight or too long/wide.
4 - Poor design.
5 - A one size fits all design
So what makes good jewellery?
1 - Highly polished
2 - Implant grade (certified) Titanium/Niobium or at least 14 karat gold.
3 - Correct style and size for the placement and anatomy
4 - Smooth design
5 - Flush fitting to bar/post.
Worst bit of all is the market is flooded with cheap jewellery, and when you end up with some in your piercing, You end up going to see a Piercer with your problems and we give our advice, time and use our supplies for absolutely FREE!!!
I leave you with one thought -
Would you travel to work several times a week, every week for a meeting without getting paid a penny?
We do what we do because we want the best possible piercing for you!