We feel it's very important to do all we can to make things as safe and gentle as possible.

The precautions we use are based on modern surgical aseptic technique. Surgeons discovered over 100 years ago that they got much better, more consistent results if they used sterile technique. No doctor would even think of stitching your wound or inserting a catheter without using sterile technique, because they know you would most likely get some kind of infection (read more about it here). We also use only brand new equipment (no tools are used from person to person), so you can rest assured that there is no chance of being exposed to anything serious like HIV or HCV. The problem with trying to clean equipment and reuse it is that there is always a chance that things didn't get 100% clean. New is always better.

We have also refined our piercing procedures to be as gentle as possible. That's why we don't use clamps, forceps, guns, pliers, tubes, etc. Those items simply pinch, bruise, and hurt, and they don't make it any easier to do an accurate piercing. The clamps that most piercers use are designed for use on surgical sponges or to remove tissue for biopsies. If anything, clamps make it harder to do an accurate piercing, as they crush everything together - you don't sew by wadding fabric together and then trying to get needle and thread through, you spread the fabric out and then sew between the fibers. This is closer to the technique we use for piercing - we do gentle tissue manipulation to roll blood vessels and nerve endings out of the way and make a space for the jewelry. This lets us do as little damage to the surrounding tissue as possible, so the piercing is more comfortable from the beginning and you can heal faster and easier.