Are you thinking about introducing ear piercing to your beauty salon? Here, we discuss the fundamentals of ear piercing to ensure you are well informed on the business of professional ear piercing and able to decide whether it’s an avenue you’d like to explore.
We’ve also enlisted the guidance of professional piecer, Nicole from the Love Hate Social Club to tell us more about the industry. And if you do decide to branch out into ear piercing, we also stock a fantastic range of ear piercing kits, guns, studs and supplies to help you get started.
But before we begin, we recommend checking out the Association of professional piercers where all of the health and medical regulations involved with professional piercing are clearly outlined.
Hi Nicole, what advice can you give to any salon owners wanting to start an ear piercing service?
Piercing is an entire industry on its own – it requires hospital-level standards of hygiene, and costs £1000s in medical equipment such as an autoclave. It is not something to be taken lightly at all, it is a big investment! You need a lot of time, dedication, and the right person to tackle the job – someone with a great deal of piercing experience, aka a professional piercer ideally of many years.
Related: The importance of hygiene within your salon business
If you’d like to learn more about hygiene within your salon business, this guide from Habia is hugely informative and outlines regulation on sterile lobe piercing and much, much more.
What qualifications do you need to become a professional ear piercer?
You do not need any kind of qualifications – however, you should have completed an apprenticeship with a reputable piercer and taken bloodborne pathogen prevention courses, alongside First Aid courses. You are also recommended to be fully vaccinated against Hepatitis B.
Usually, to be a professional piercer working out of a studio, you must be approved by the council and have a personal licence, or be appointed on the studio licence as a practitioner. This adheres to local laws and varies by your location.
What are your favourite ear piercing tools to use?
Every piercer is different and has a different style of working. As long as it is safe and aseptic and does the job correctly, a variation of tools is fine. All must be to medical standard and autoclavable.
How have piercing trends evolved over the years?
A wider range of people are getting pierced nowadays – with the huge range of fine jewellery being created for body piercing purposes by companies such as BVLA, piercing is definitely becoming more accessible and fashionable.
Our average client is a fashion-forward and stylish woman between the ages of 30-50 years old. Many people want lots of delicate studs and hoops made of diamonds, other genuine gemstones, and gold, that are artistically stylised or “curated” in their ears. Ear piercings are definitely most popular.
Any further thoughts on the industry, how to market yourself as a piercer, any misconceptions about the industry, etc?
The image of body piercing is changing and has definitely become reimagined as you can see in the answer to the previous question. It is being more accepted as a valid adornment and way of making yourself more beautiful to yourself and others and a way of showing off your gold jewellery and artistic personal expression. This is a wonderful thing which we openly celebrate.
Shop Caflon Ear Piercing Kits today!
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