AWFUL MODS

Extremely Bad Experience with Claire’s Piercing Gun

My older sister wanted us to get our ears pierced together when we were 12 and 13. My dad took us to Claire’s, where they used a piercing gun to do the job.

They gave me surgical steel earrings and clear instructions on how to care for the new piercing. I woke up in the morning less than 48 hours after they’d been done to find that my ears had swollen immensely, to the point that the skin had enveloped the stud earrings.

I had to go to the emergency room, where doctors literally had to cut away skin in order to get them out. After the affected area healed, I went to a professional piercing studio to have them re-done. There, they told me that by looking at the scars left by Claire’s, they could tell that they hadn’t even pierced my ears in the correct place, and did it at an angle so that the earrings went in lopsided in addition. In short, while I was probably too young to understand anything about proper piercing methods and the value of going to a pro, I wish that I had at least gone to someone who didn’t use a piercing gun.