I had an interaction with someone recently that inspired me to write this blog post. We were discussing some things about various piercings and the topic of smilie piercings came up. I mentioned that I don’t personally offer them as I find the risks of oral damage from them are far too high. They agreed, but followed up with “Can you believe some APP members offer them? I’m always so shocked and disappointed to see it. I unfollow them right away.” And this statement gave me pause. It was a perspective I definitely once held myself, especially as a younger piercer. There was a right way and a wrong way to do things, there were safe and unsafe piercings. These were easy ways to tell what a piercer was doing and how much they knew. I used to have the exactly same mentality- scrolling Instagram and passing judgment on the posts I saw- that was a good piercing with good jewelry, and that was a good piercer. And that was a piercing I would never do, the jewelry sizing was poor, and that definitely made this person a bad piercer. I would quickly assume that this piercer knew what they were doing was wrong, didn’t care about their clients, and was just a hack.
And sometimes, these assumptions were right. But sometimes they were wrong. Sometimes it was a piercer who had had a bad or incomplete apprenticeship, who was struggling to do their best with the education they had, who simply made a bad call. Sometimes it was a piercing or a style of jewelry I don’t necessarily agree with using, but that piercer has had a ton of success with it in their climate and their clients. Sometimes it's a piercer who is actually extremely knowledgeable and skilled, whose boundary for the work they will and won’t do looks different than mine.
And this is where this situation gets difficult. There isn’t just one way to do a piercing. There are dozens if not hundreds of factors to consider with different piercings, techniques, jewelry, safety, etc. And every individual piercer is going to need to weigh the pros and cons, and do what they feel is the best for themselves and their clients. Take that smilie piercing, for example. They are relatively well documented to cause oral damage and gum damage. Because of this, and because of the amount of damage I’ve seen them cause to clients, I don’t personally offer them. But I have peers who do- who take precautions like using captives with flat back beads and swapping them to seams as soon as possible, who won’t use circulars and jewelry styles that put more pressure on the gums. These are some peers who I respect, whose skills I admire and whose classes I’ve attended. I know they have weighed the pros and cons and made a decision that suits them and their clients. Likewise, there are a number of peers I have who don’t offer tongue piercings. Tongue piercings are also well-documented to cause oral damage and gum damage, and many folks feel that documented damage is not worth the risk. I personally find that with proper placement, aftercare, jewelry sizing, and a responsible client, the damage can be minimized enough to make me feel safe and comfortable offering tongue piercings.
I disagree with some of my peers who offer smilies, but I also respect that some of them have done their own risk assessment, and found that they feel comfortable with that level of risk. Just as some of my peers disagree with me offering tongue piercings, but respect that I’ve done the risk assessment as well. And this continues in many facets of piercing. I’m more comfortable starting with smaller ends on nostrils than my coworkers (after an informed consent discussion, of course.) And some of my coworkers are far more comfortable than I am doing more decorative jewelry initially in a lot of ear and body placements (famously, I can be conservative about jewelry styles and favor simple pieces for healing).
But the reason I still respect and even work alongside folks who do things differently than I do often comes down to an assumption of good faith. When I see someone I know, or someone I like or trust in the industry do something that makes me raise an eyebrow, I usually assume they had an honest conversation with their client, they weighed the pros and cons of this decision, and found the risk worth taking. Rather than look at their work and pass judgment or assume the worst, I might reach out to them and ask their mindset or mentality behind doing this, or just shrug and go yeah, X would do that!
But quite often in the industry, we assume bad faith. We see something questionable and we assume the piercers don’t know any better, didn’t have proper training, or know better and don’t care, didn’t warn their client, or any number of negative judgments about the work we are viewing. And I know we do it often because I absolutely used to do this. I still struggle with doing this. I catch myself viewing work in bad faith and have to remind myself that I don’t know this person- I don’t know this piercer or this studio, the climate they live in, their experience level, etc. I don’t know if they did an honest risk assessment with their clients, or discussed informed consent. I’m just assuming they didn’t, based almost entirely on a bad-faith judgment of them and their work.
Now- I’m not saying this to justify folks doing outright unsafe piercings. Bad angles, dangerous placement, low-quality jewelry, unsafe sterilization and processing, and piercings like horizontal tongues where we can’t reasonably minimize the risk of damage. We can, and should, remain wary and skeptical of dangerous work that can hurt clients' bodies.
But I am saying that we as an industry could benefit from taking a step back. From trying to view others' work from a place of neutrality rather than negativity. And give piercers we don’t know the same benefit of the doubt as those we do. There is more than one way to pierce, more than one approach, and every single piercer is going to have their own unique take. The climate someone works in, the type of clientele they have, their experience, and their knowledge is going to combine to create a very different approach than anyone else’s. Rather than cast judgment, we could message this person, ask about their thought process behind this piercing or this jewelry, and if we disagree, we can share that perspective in a way that is polite rather than brutal honesty or harsh critique.
I guest at studios that use sterile gloves, face shields, and who wear aprons when they pierce. And I guest at studios that use exam gloves for piercing. Both are amazing, incredible studios with educated, safe piercers. I work with piercers who feel very comfortable piercing a nostril or a helix with a ring after a discussion with the client, and I work with piercers who firmly would never start those with a ring- and both are skilled and safe piercers. There is no one size fits all in piercing, and as piercers I think we would do well to remember that before we cast judgment on our peer's work.