Why Piercing Courses are a Scam

So you’ve decided you want to be a piercer! You are passionate about piercings and you know the career is your calling. But you are a bit nervous, after all, you have heard that it can be really difficult to get into the piercing industry. There are not many opportunities for apprenticeships in your area, and you have heard enough about abuse and exploitation in apprenticeships that you are nervous to even begin looking. Plus apprenticeships can often take years and years- you are excited to be a piercer now! Isn’t there any other way? Then you see it, an advertisement online “Take our piercing course and learn to be a proficient piercer in just 3 weeks!” You read more and it seems too good to be true, they’ll help you get licenses, teach you anatomy and bloodborne pathogens, you’ll have a whole week of training on live models, and you’ll leave able to do so many piercings! This is exactly what you’ve been looking for. You excitedly take out your credit card to pay the totally reasonable 3,000$ fee, ready to start your piercing career….

But wait! Maybe we should look a little closer at these “piercing courses” before we commit to them….

What do these courses entail?

I decided to research over 30 different “piercing courses” as I was writing this blog, and most of them terrified me. Among the things I found was an entirely online piercing course that boasted in less than a week with their videos you could start offering piercings. Yes, you read that right. 0 hands-on training, 0 in-person education. No included bloodborne pathogens training. Just 30-40 videos you watched, and they would send you needles, jewelry, and tools all for under 1,000$, and promised you’d be ready to pierce as soon as you were done watching them. Oh and the best part? This course included genital piercings. Yes, with 0 hands-on training or in-person experience, and just watching videos, you will be ready to start offering genital piercings on people. But of course, the main focus of this course was talking about how lucrative piercing was and how much money you’d make offering it. They brag that piercing is so easy it only takes 5-10 minutes to do one and you can charge people 50-70$. They also brag that with their unique training and setup, you don’t need to worry about purchasing an autoclave or diverse jewelry. Their course is built around using only 5 different pieces of jewelry for every single piercing you offer, just give everyone the same size piece, and it’ll be fine!

But maybe they aren’t all bad- surely there are some better ones out there?

Well I also found a 5 week course that does have bloodborne pathogens training and CPR, and promises to teach about piercing history and sterile processing, which is much more promising. And it’s in person which is also great! But you only do 1 of every piercing offered, meaning 1 nostril, 1 helix, 1 nipple, etc, and then you have finished the course. Yep. You just have to pierce something once, on one type of anatomy and then you are good to go- you are a piercer now! You definitely don’t need to see lots of different anatomical variations to understand the difference of working on different body types. Nonsense, they can just teach you about what those anatomical variations would be. Oh, and it’s ten thousand dollars for this course- have fun!

You can also take a course targeted at estheticians and hair stylists who want to learn to pierce on the side. It’s only two days long and you’ll be able to do all sorts of ear piercings afterward! None of those weird body piercings though, because who wants that? For the low low price of 2,000$ you can become a piercer in a weekend- and while there’s limited information about the actual training, health, and safety there is a very detailed breakdown of how much money you can charge for piercings, how much you can mark up some gold plated jewelry, and what ‘quick easy money’ it’ll be to do. You know, quick easy money, exactly the mindset you want someone who is literally stabbing you to have about your piercing experience.

How does an Apprenticeship differ?

Ok…so maybe these courses aren’t as good as we thought. But it also sounds like apprenticeships aren’t often everything they promise to be either. So what’s the big difference, how is an apprenticeship different than a course? Well, when we consider a good apprenticeship….

Length of Time- I firmly believe that an ideal apprenticeship takes 2-4 years to learn comprehensively. And part of this is just the sheer volume of information you need to learn in order to pierce well and safely. But another part of it is just the experience and education you get over time. There is so much variety that goes into piercing, from all the different anatomy you’ll encounter to different variations on piercings to different clients who have different personalities and needs. When you have an apprenticeship over a long length of time, you get the opportunity to observe all these different anatomies, all these different interactions, and learn from them all. Take for example a client with inverted nipples- your studio may only get a handful of clients with this anatomy every year- but it’s still important to know how to work with it! What about unique birthmarks that affect piercing, surgically altered tissue, or clients with specific medical conditions? All these clients deserve a good piercing experience, and a truly good apprenticeship will last long enough that you’ll be able to observe and learn on all these different anatomies so you can truly be a well-rounded piercer.

Comprehensive Training- There is so much that goes into piercing, from sterile techniques, sterile processing, bedside manner, an understanding of the materials we use and why, bevel theory, anatomy, biology, chemistry, and the list goes on. More than you could learn in a single course. But what I want to focus on is simply healing piercings. Because yes, doing a good straight piercing is a very important part of the job. But helping a client heal that piercing is also an important part of the job. When you do a full apprenticeship it takes 1-2 years. You know what else can take up to a full year? Healing a piercing. So over this time period you don’t just get to do piercings, you get to watch them heal. You get to see what heals well, and what doesn’t. What issues and problems arise for your clients? You get to see how your mentor fixes and handles these problems, and you learn how to apply these skills yourself. This is the art of troubleshooting, or helping clients with issues heal their piercings. It’s just as important a skillset as learning how to do the piercing. So if piercings can take 6-9 sometimes 12+ months to heal, then it makes sense your training to do piercings should be as long as it would take your clients to heal them. Otherwise, how do you even know if your work is healing fully and well?

Networking Opportunities- Networking and building connections is an essential part of being a piercer. You need other connections to reach out to for critique and feedback on your work, for help if you need an emergency piece of jewelry, or for coverage if you have to take time off work. Networking allows you to find guest spots, travel, and get coverage for your own studio, and if you need to switch jobs, it’s how you’ll make the connections to end up somewhere new and perfect for you. These connections are a big part of an apprenticeship, apprentices get to shadow and guest at studios their mentors are connected with, and they get to meet other piercers and build relationships with jewelry vendors through their mentor. In a course, you get none of these things. In fact, if the course is truly bad and constantly turns out dangerous work, local piercers may be averse to talking with you after you’ve finished it. After all, they are the folks likely fixing bad or unsafe work coming out of those courses.

Running a Business- These days being a good piercer is only a small part of being a successful piercer. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a very important part. But you also need to be able to run things on social media, field client emails and communication, order and stock jewelry, pay your taxes accurately, deal with licensing and registration in your state, and possibly deal with zoning and setup for spaces, theres a lot! And a short course that only talks about how to do a handful of piercings does not adequately prepare you for having and running a business. Jewelry ordering in and of itself is a massive beast that can take a long time to learn correctly. What sizes you need to stock, what gems and colors sell well in your area, what companies make which pieces, and what you need to carry for different anatomies and different bodies. Ordering jewelry alone was a skill that took me about a year to a year and a half to really feel proficient at, and it was its own unique skill set I had to work on. These other skills are essential to being successful as a piercer, and are skills that take time to learn. A short course just does not adequately prepare you for having a business.

What About the Fakir Intensives?

But Lynn....don't you suggest the fakir intensives? Isn't that also a piercing course? Well I do suggest and adore the intensives, but I don't consider it a piercing course like the ones I'm talking about here. The intensives is a great way to introduce yourself to certain fundamental elements of piercing or expand existing skill sets. But they do not promise that after a week you'll be a fully trained piercer able to go off on your own and pierce clients unsupervised. In fact they are incredibly transparent that this is supplementary information designed to be an addition to proper education and training in an apprenticeship. My issue with most of these courses I'm discussing here is they tell you that after a few days to a week or two, you'll be ready to offer all piercings on paying clients without any further education or training. This is simply disingenuous and puts clients in harm's way. You simply can't learn to comprehensively become a piercer in a single week, or a day or two. And the intensives doesn't promise that- they offer a program that is in addition to a proper apprenticeship.

I know finding a good, safe, quality apprenticeship can be a daunting challenge. But I promise, it is so worth it to have proper education, proper training, and a good start in this industry. Not only do you deserve to be trained well, but your clients deserve a piercer who has adequate education to be the person working on their body. Most of these courses are scams designed to take your money and give you little to no actual valuable education and training in return.

For more resources please check out my apprentice resources page, and I wish you the best of luck with finding a perfect apprenticeship for you!