Ear Piercing - where to go?

[frog]

I have had many piercings and body mods over the years, and a couple of years ago found The Piercing Urge in Prahran, Melbourne. I have always found them super professional, the shop is perfectly clean, and they can help give unbiased info on when a piercing is appropriate, risk factors, and educate on things like why they don't use or recommend piercing guns. I (and many others) could go on for hours about piercing guns, but the info is freely available online and speaks for itself. If you live somewhere near them, I'd recommend them whole heartedly, I travel to them from Tassie when I want a piercing! They would be more than happy to give you advice over the phone I'm sure. Not sure if this helps a whole lot, but they would certainly point you in the right direction. Their website has a lot of educational stuff on it too.

Bear in mind that "piercers" in shopping centres, hair dressers etc often don't have a lot of training, if any. Some watch a DVD to show them what to do and have no knowledge in the hygiene side of things. The gun can't be sterilised as it is plastic. Most would go to a short course. There is also a difference in needles too, there are the needles with the plastic tubing, and blade needles which take a lot more skill but are superior.

This is all my opinion only though, after trying lots of different methods and finally finding the most comfortable way for me with people that I trust to stick needles in some pretty dicey places!