To use piercing gun for DD first earlobe piercing?

[CableCar]

Have been debating allowing my daughter to get her ears pierced after she's been asking me to get them done and am thinking of just going to a high street jewellers where they'll use the studs and a piercing gun.
Friends have all taken their DDs to high street jewellers for piercings, Claire's etc. where piercing guns were used and been fine. However, the internet seems to be full of hate against piercing guns and advocating for using needles! They say piercing guns aren't as clean of a hole, they can be unsanitary etc... does it really matter?!

YANBU - of course it is fine to go to a high street jewellers - they're only first earlobe piercings, not cartilage etc and it's all hype about not using stud guns - most people go to high street jewellers and are fine

YABU - go somewhere where they use a needle as stud guns are awful!

My dd had hers done with a gun, however the place used single use guns and they opened the fresh packs in front of me.

Dd had asked for about 2 years and we had continually put it off. For a medical condition she has bi monthly blood tests and has done for over 5 years. After a careless nurse who had refused emla cream use was rough with drawing her blood it took 2 years to be able to get dd to sit without screaming for a blood test. Unfortunately I wasn't willing to risk her associating piercing with a needle to that so I researched alternatives.

Dd has had absolutely no issues, but i firmly believe that is because the place used single use guns (they were about credit card sized, plastic) & the way the studs were packaged meant no one had to touch them to load them into the gun. The staff sanitised hands first and wore gloves.

Guns are not ideal. But not all people who pierce with guns do so in crappy conditions

@Jemimapinotduck it was an independent jeweller - but I was happy with the hygiene from what I read and my daughter didn't even flinch. And no problems at all since.

DD has two ear sets of lobe piercings. We had the first ones done at Claire's so no judgement from me there but they took an eternity to heal and were constantly weeping until I bought hypoallergenic studs. When she wanted the second set done I said she could only have them if it was with a needle so we went to the piercer at our local tattoo studio, a million times better and they were fully healed within 6 weeks, she can have any earrings in them without trouble

Each one me, my friends, child have had done were at Claires and with a gun. All absolutely fine, no issues

YABU

Some reasons to opt for a needle:

• Places like Claire’s that use a reusable gun (with changeable cartridge) cannot be sterilised. You can wipe it down but that’s not sterilising, a piercing gun would melt in an autoclave. Single-use guns have even shittier mechanisms than the ones that get used repeatedly, and are also not safe.
• They pierce using the jewellery, which is pretty blunt (or you’d be going ‘ow!’ every time you leant on it and it poked your neck), whereas a professional piercer uses a needle or blade which cuts a tiny bit of tissue out and makes space for the jewellery
• The jewellery! Earrings that come with piercing guns are generally surgical steel, or another low quality metal. Ideally you want a piercer who uses implant-grade titanium, as titanium doesn’t cause allergies like surgical steel can for some people.
• People who pierce at Superdrug have two hours of training (I have a client at work who told me this and left her job in the end as she wouldn’t pierce a crying four year old girl’s ears and was going to get in trouble for this) before they can pierce and that’s it, they’re ready to pierce the general public- I find that pretty horrifying!!

Source: I am a tattooist and also a trained piercer. There’s really no excuse to get piercings done at H Samuel/Claire’s/Superdrug any more, and it’s pretty easy online to find info on the massive benefits of having it done properly. I’ve also had to dig disgusting tarnished piercing gun jewellery out of people’s sore ears one too many times and find it frustrating that people still opt for gun piercings as I can’t understand why you would when there’s a far safer option!

About 5 years ago following a thread on MN I went to Astrid & Miyu for a second earlobe piercing - the first time was when I was around 11 in the 1960s!

They used a gun and all has been well since.

Astrid & Miyu | Contemporary Jewellery To Stack & Style (astridandmiyu.com)

Ideally it would be done with a needle at a proper tattoo/piercing shop. Depending on age, that might not be possible as they have age limits which is why people go to jewellers instead. It's not about it being cheap. In fact, Claire's is fucking extortionate.

Almost everyone had their ears pierced with a gun when I was a child in the 1980s. Other kinds of bodily piercings only existed in BDSM circles so you wouldn't have been likely to have been taken to that kind of establishment by your mum!

I'm going to hazard a guess that the vast majority of lobe piercings in this country still are done by a gun and the chances are you will be fine doing it this way. Piercing earrings are carefully designed now to protect the piercing and give room for it to heal.

But if it's easy to find a piercing studio or tattoo shop which does piercings by needle then that might be a better and safer option for a good result. Only on Mumsnet has it become de rigeur to do so, not in normal life.

You know when body piercing exploded? When the Spice Girls became famous. That's when it crossed the niche, alternative lifestyle line, and it was mainly young girls demanding not only ear-piercings, but facial, navel and tongue piercings.

The market increased hugely. Also the rock and metal scene in the 80s and 90s was a huge part of the boom.

That's why you have a regulated industry, not just Claires and local jewellers, which has strived to improve practise and hygiene.

Another cultural trend brought on by the mainstream? Daith piercings - which may help migraine sufferers - publicised on possibly Loose Women as I recall? Which lead to a steady stream of very "straight" (as in not "alternative") customers, a large number of whom were muddle aged women. I'd like to see someone doing that with a gun due to its position. Cartilage piercings in general can take months to heal, and doing them with a gun can prolong healing time.

The point is, things progress and improve and the OP has asked for advice to make sure her daughter has the best experience and long term comfort which she has been given by a number of people, including myself and actual professional piercers. So it's up to her to weigh it up, and make that decision.

It may seem trivial to some, but we can never know for sure whether high standards in the industry has prevented a huge surge in infections and bad experiences in the last 20 - 30 years, but I'd hazard a guess that's very, very likely.

At least professional piercers give a shit about their predominantly female clients and don't just treat them as a useful cash cow using the least expensive and often sub-standard methods to squeeze money out of them. Personally I think that's a good thing.

Absolutely second Holier Than Thou. Had several piercings done there and they're excellent. Their piercers have been doing it for years.

All of this "we all had it done in the 80's with a gun and didn't die" is bollocks.

I had fillings as a kid with no anaesthetic and didn't die, it doesn't mean it's the best way to do it.

I am the same - I know no one in real life who has used an actual piercer.

I feel like the atmosphere/culture of a lot of tattoo shops isn't really one I'd like to take my DD in to, as loads of the ones near us have quite an oppressive and adult looking interior... It doesn't feel like a child friendly place to go to when it's all painted black or have skull logos etc!

Thanks I didn't realise H Samuel offered piercing!

This wasn't my experience at all. The piercing room was similar to a doctor's office and there were cases of sample jewellery. It wasn't some den of iniquity

I've taken my children into many a tattoo studio ever since they were babies (tattooist in my close family) and the staff - and clients - couldn't be any more welcoming! All kinds of people have tattoos and piercings these days.

My dd is starting to talk about getting her ears pierced - she isn't 100% yet - but I've said we can do it whenever she's ready, and we'll absolutely go to a tattoo studio.

Why would anyone let a shop assistant do body modifications instead of a trained expert?

I took my daughter to get hers done at a studio and it was brilliant. They were so professional and everything was ultra hygienic and consent focussed.

I found the skulls and snake decorations far less offensive than that video of a young girl screaming and begging the people at Claire’s not to do it, whilst they held her down and carried on. Vile.

I got my daughters ears pierced at claires, I had no idea it was so ghastly. I had mine done at 19 and had no problem so just took her there. She's fine BTW.

Me too, but apparently we should be catapulted over the battlements into crocodile infested waters