08/29/2026
I’ve been piercing for years.
I’ve performed thousands upon thousands of piercings, and there are certain piercings I’ve done so many times that the entire process feels like second nature.
But every once in a while, a piercing will humble me and I’ll have one that decides to remind me that piercers are human too.
Maybe the jewelry doesn’t want to cooperate, or a transfer that normally takes seconds suddenly takes several attempts, or the anatomy makes me change my approach halfway through, or maybe, something that I’ve done flawlessly a thousand times suddenly decides it’s going to give me a run for my money that day.
And I think it’s important to talk about that.
Being an experienced piercer doesn’t mean that every piercing I perform will be completely effortless from start to finish.
It doesn’t mean I’ll never encounter something unexpected, need to stop and reassess, or have to reach for a different tool or technique.
Experience isn’t never having something go wrong or become difficult, experience is knowing what to do when it does.
It’s knowing when to slow down.
It’s knowing when something isn’t working and changing your approach instead of forcing it.
It’s having the tools, knowledge, and confidence to problem solve when a normally straightforward procedure suddenly decides it wants to humble you.
And yes, sometimes I’ll finish a piercing like that and internally think, “Well… that was unnecessarily dramatic.”
I will think about it for the next 3-5 business weeks and it will keep me up at night.
But it’s because I care deeply about the work I put out. I hold myself to a very high standard, and I want every client who sits in my chair to have the smoothest experience possible.
But the reality is, bodies aren’t identical. Piercings aren’t performed on mannequins. Jewelry doesn’t always cooperate perfectly. People can swell, bleed, get dizzy, faint, twitch, sneeze, panic, laugh, move, because we’re all human.
And on the other side of that needle is another human, too. 🖤
A piercer can have years of experience and thousands of beautiful piercings behind them and still occasionally have a piercing that makes them work for it.
That’s not always a sign of inexperience, sometimes it’s just a Tuesday afternoon in the piercing studio.
