Probably one of the most frequently asked questions we get as piercers and studios are - “Do you pierce with a needle or a gun?” and of course if you want into any reputable studio that has a professional piercer, the answer will always be - with a needle. Because if it were up to me and I am sure every other piercer in the world, every piercing gun would be collected into one place and thrown further into the abyss than The Heart Of The Ocean from the Titanic.
So why do we hate them so much - well let’s dive into that a bit, shall we?
The first obvious reason would be cross-contamination. Many, if not all piercings guns cannot be sterilised which leaves you in a position where you may come into contact with the blood of the client who was pierced before you. How so? Well, when you get pierced with a gun, firstly the jewellery that is used is blunt, so what ends up happening is this blunt object is shoved through your ear and chances are there is going to be a small amount of blood splattered that then sits on the piercing gun which cannot be cleaned. Copy, and paste this process for a multitude of clients getting pierced with that same gun every day and you get a beautiful cocktail of blood, contaminants and possible blood-borne diseases being passed from one client to the next, leaving you with a high chance of getting an infection or irritation with your brand new piercing.
Sounds lovely, doesn't it?
On the contrary, you have piercings done with a needle which is the immediate and obvious choice for piercings. For many reasons, the most important of all being that all needles are single-use only. There is no risk of cross-contamination with needles and an incredibly small chance of infection. Needles are incredibly sharp meaning when you get pierced with a needle you have far less painful piercings experience than you would with a gun.
Needle vs Gun
The next main difference between the needle and the gun is the jewellery choice. As mentioned above the piercing gun takes a blunt piece of jewellery and shoves it through your ear - this, just by the by is medically considered to be “blunt force trauma, and then that jewellery is closed so tightly in your ear that you have zero room for swelling to occur so what ends up happening most of the time is this piece of jewellery then squeezes the heck out of your ear, does not allow your body to swell so you generally have a longer more painful healing process, and/or you have jewellery that ends up being embedded in your ear.
With a needle, the jewellery is carefully selected and tailored to each piercing with accommodations for swelling and any other complications that may arise during healing if any. The jewellery is usually a slight bit longer to accommodate for swelling and therefore leads to a much healthier and nicer healing process.
Have a look at this little video showing the difference between getting pierced with guns and needles.
Blog post was written by our resident piercer Axel.