Become a Licensed Piercer

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Tristan McCauley from Lucky Seven Tattoo, and I'm here to tell you how to become a licensed piercer. The first thing you want to do is try and find an apprenticeship program with a reputable artist, someone that knows what they're doing, has been doing it for a while, that's the best way to learn. You'll learn quick, you'll learn the right way to do things. Another thing you want to do is try to attend a blood born pathogen class. Or it's usually provided by either the Red Cross, OSHA, or by your local health department. When you go to an artist you want to make sure that they've attended these classes. They should have a certificate that looks something like this. And when you're looking for their license it should look a bit like this. It kind of varies from state to state and county to county, but look for something similar to this or that. Another thing you want to do is work for about six months as a trainee in order to learn the proper sterilization techniques, you want to learn the proper disinfection techniques, and how to avoid cross contamination. You want to watch everything that's being done at least two to three times before you try to attempt it yourself. A good way to practice on piercing is to get a piece of fake skin, you can get it from any kind of tattoo supplier. Kingpen, things like that, they have different fake skin that you can use. And practice everything. Try to use all kinds of jewelry. Go for your captive bead rings, you want to try to use your barbells, your nose bones, your nostril screws. All of these different things. You want to learn about all the kinds of jewelry, how to convert from gauges to millimeters, gauges to inches, and the proper way to do all these things. Another thing you want to do is learn how to troubleshoot different problems. You want to be able to look at something and know pretty close to what's going on with it, like say if somebody comes in with an eyebrow piercing that's red and it looks irritated, chances are it might be an infection. You want to be able to know what you're looking at when you see it. Another thing you want to learn is proper aftercare. If you give someone the wrong information they could go home, really mess themselves up. And the last thing you want to do after your license is join the APP, or the Association of Professional Piercers. This kind of legitimizes what you're doing and if you build up a reputation as a respectable piercer. These are just a few of the steps to becoming a licensed body piercer."