We have a lot of people that come into our studio and ask if they can get pierced with their own jewelry. Today we are going to explain the reasons why we don’t pierce with “outside” jewelry.

Can I bring my own jewelry to get pierced?

First of all it depends on the studio you go to, they may or may not allow you to use your own jewelry. For example at our studio, LuLu’s, we do not allow you to get pierced with your own jewelry. We do this for your safety and your health and of course when people bring jewelry they want to get pierced with the sizing is incorrect for initial piercing. A lot of the time people bring fashion jewelry or what is called costume jewelry which isn’t safe for initial piercing because you don’t know if its a good metal and also the health department doesn’t allow us to pierce with low quality metals.

Are you trying to make money off of us because we can’t use our own jewelry? 

No, that is not what we do here. We think about what the best thing would be for you. We are not going to take your money and pierce you with the jewelry that you bring that we know is the incorrect sizing or incorrect style for the piercing you were going for. In the end we are trying to save you money and time for having to deal with a messed up piercing. Another thing to keep in mind is if you buy jewelry that comes in a 16 pack or 18 pack it’s not good quality jewelry because why would they be selling so many in a pack for really cheap? 

Sterile Jewelry 

If jewelry isn’t sterilized it can give you an infection because of all the places that it’s been. We once had someone come into our studio and hand us what was a “14 karat gold” piece of jewelry and when we agreed to pierce with it, we placed it into the autoclave and it melted. That there is another reason why we don’t pierce with outside jewelry. Even though we have the proper tools to sterilize others jewelry we don’t because if anything happens to the jewelry in our autoclave no matter what material it is, we don’t want to be held responsible if it gets ruined. 

Questions you should ask

If the studio does let you get pierced with your own jewelry I would do some research or call ahead of time and ask them what metals you can bring, what length and gauge you would need for the piercing that you would like to get.  The metals that we highly recommend are 14 or 18 karat gold as well as implant-grade titanium.