Source: Myself Today I went to get a new lip piercing (silver) from a piercing shop which was advertising $25 piercings from their new trainee. I was assured that she had done 120+ piercings so far and that they had all turned out well. When I got to the shop I noticed that they did both gun piercings and needle piercings (with a separate price list for each), which made me shudder, but since I’d driven all the way there and they seemed hygienic, I decided to go through with it. What’s awful: Apparently it didn’t occur to her that she would need to line the new piercing up with my old one (black) on the inside of my lip too. The new one pointed downwards as opposed to being straight because of how high the back was. How it can be fixed: I managed to take it out (not sure if I should have but I couldn’t stand having it in my face). I will be going back to my usual piercer in future.
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Source: Myself

Today I went to get a new lip piercing (silver) from a piercing shop which was advertising $25 piercings from their new trainee. I was assured that she had done 120+ piercings so far and that they had all turned out well. When I got to the shop I noticed that they did both gun piercings and needle piercings (with a separate price list for each), which made me shudder, but since I’d driven all the way there and they seemed hygienic, I decided to go through with it.

What’s awful: Apparently it didn’t occur to her that she would need to line the new piercing up with my old one (black) on the inside of my lip too. The new one pointed downwards as opposed to being straight because of how high the back was.

How it can be fixed: I managed to take it out (not sure if I should have but I couldn’t stand having it in my face). I will be going back to my usual piercer in future.

Bloody Accidents

After reading the recent submission about Body Accents down in Joplin, Missouri, I feel I need to add to the severity of that horrible situation. I won’t name the person I’m going to mention, because he’s a very close friend of mine, and I feel sorry for his bad luck in this.

A few years ago, “J”, as we’ll call him, called me up and said he was going to get a tattoo and asked if I wanted to come along and check it out when it was done. I said sure, and suggested a couple places to him that he should go for the artwork. RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING, I told him a dozen times not to go to Body Accents, and expressed their nickname “Bloody Accidents”.  I think he went there because it was cheap and they were ready to do it right on the spot. He went in with a design of a dagger, supposed to appear as though it’s stuck in the skin, with a banner reading “Family Forever” around the hilt.

Instead what he got was a butter knife that looked as if someone pulled on and pinched his skin around the horribly misshapen blade of it.

I’d also like to mention that the “artist” let both J’s brother and I sit within two feet of J as he was getting worked on, AND at one point when J was obviously as nervous as could be, this “artist” chose to turn his tattoo gun upside down and buzzed it on J’s nipple when he wasn’t looking, just because it was funny.

If you are from Joplin or the surrounding area DO NOT GO TO BLOODY ACCIDENTS.

This is more for the first time body modders

(SOURCE)

SUBMITTER’S COMMENT: When people ask me ‘why did you pay so much??’  or ‘my jewelry was way cheaper, you got ripped off’ I show them this. Quality over quantity. Jewelry that’s made out of implant grade materials, that you know what metals they are made from, and that are made just for you beat any $10 cbr or curved barbell bought from the mall. If you pride yourself on your piercings and care about them, buy the jewelry that show you do. It’s pricey, yes. BUT like I said it’s quality over quantity. If you have any questions on what brands or where you can buy excellent quality jewelry hit up my askbox! I know the body mod community might be kinda intimidating at times, but asking questions is how we learn and better ourselves!

SUMBITTER’S COMMENT:-This is my first tattoo I got, I went to a licensed tattoo artist and I’d seen some of his other work and thought he was good so I did do my research. For some reason it didn’t turn out how I wanted even though I gave him a very detailed picture and explained what I wanted but he did it wrong :/ My other tattoos are much better.

WHAT’S AWFUL: I think the shape of it is awful and the line work is really bad, want it fixed so badly.

Source

Submitter Comment: I wore these for about 2 weeks in 2011. It was almost a year before my lobes were healthy enough to stretch again, and even now I’m only able to stretch about a mm per year. I can still feel the difference between the piercing that had the bottom plug (exposed to mystery metal) and the one with the top plug (only exposed to mystery coating). 

What’s Awful: Flaking coating over mystery metal, a significant scratch on a wearable surface, poor finish on the one that didn’t flake, and a visible seam and filler hole mark. The bottom one broke within about a week of buying it. 

 How it can be avoided: Learn which materials, styles, shops and companies are acceptable and don’t buy jewelry if you don’t know that it’s good quality. If you do end up wearing something like this, remove it as soon as you notice problems and seek advice from a reputable piercer. 

AWFUL MODS: As an employee of Hot Topic in Virginia, I would like to point out...

tobiasxva:

awfulmodifications:

As an employee of Hot Topic in Virginia, I would like to point out that our body jewelry is tested to be nickel free. Also, the wonderful man who does all my piercings (20+ years experience in the best shop in my town, the owner, Joe Hagerty, shits awards for his tattooing) agrees with me, that…

All stainless steel jewelry contains nickel.  Even ASTM F-138 ‘Implant Grade’ stainless steel (albeit a very minute amount).  HT does not test nor guarantee any jewelry to be nickel free, that’s crazy.  The only high quality jewelry they sell is Kaos.

As for “20 years experience”.  The website for that shop shows the piercer has been working for ~12 years according to their website, so that’s already throwing me off a bit.  Everything on his site including aftercare seems fine though, so I’d be really hard pressed to imagine that he’s OKing Hot Topic jewelry. 

Thank you. <3

Also, I am really having trouble with all these comments about how HT jewelry is nickel free. like “our body jewelry doesn’t have any more nickle than the FDA allows” okay…great… maybe the FDA allows it, but that doesn’t make me not allergic to it and that means to me that your jewelry is cruddy…because it makes me break out in a gross rash. The FDA also allows peanuts, but if you’re allergic to peanuts, YOU STAY AWAY FROM PEANUTS. Nickel allergies aren’t uncommon. If you KNOW you aren’t allergic, by all means, go ahead and buy it, but I wouldn’t go near the stuff.

And yes, ALL steel has nickel in it. Even implant grade, but that is SUCH A SMALL AMOUNT that my body doesn’t react to it. Hell, I can even wear shitty metal mafia jewelry in my industrial piercing, but if my skin anywhere else comes in long-term contact with 316L “surgical” steel, I break out. (I realized that before I realized that steel jewelry had nickel in it, if i knew what i was buying at the time, i probably wouldn’t have bought it…)

Anyway. That’s enough rambling about this and I don’t even know how you all can argue that steel jewelry, especially not the implant grade steel, doesn’t have nickel in it. Here, take a look, 316L steel (the type of steel economy jewelry is made of) has 10 - 14% nickel content.

And on page 5 in the middle of the right hand column, you can find out why ASTM F-138 steel pretty much doesn’t cause reactions.

-Kat

(via tobiasxva-deactivated20130224)

Source: awfulmodifications

I never thought I would have an awful mod, seeing as how I ALWAYS have mine professionally done, research my mods months before, and follow the aftercare instructions completley. But I want to submit myself. In August, I was pierced at Body Accents in Joplin, MO. I had wanted a dimple piercing since I was 16. I waited until I was 18 because my mom is against modifications. I went in and filled out a crap ton of paperwork and then I was “stabbed” (as they call it at body accents). Only after I left had I learned that they’re nicknamed “bloody accidents”. Well my piercing started to swell really bad, and ended up closing over the ball inside. I went back to them and they “attempted” to dig it out with a small needle. After they couldn’t help me, I went to several other piercers, who wouldn’t even touch it after I showed them that it was stuck in my cheek. No one could do anything for me. I even had to get married with it stuck in my cheek. Finally, 3 days ago, I went to the hospital and had it cut out. My advice to anyone looking for a body modification, DON’T GO TO BLOODY ACCIDENTS!

I was getting a tattoo yesterday and there was an Australian guy sitting next to me also getting one. From what he said, I assume he was on a cruise ship and had stopped off in Auckland briefly where he had decided to get a tattoo. There’s nothing wrong with that, he picked a very reputable shop and it turned out well, but it was the stories he was telling of his previous two tattoos that were horrible.

One looked semi decent, it was a word I couldn’t read in artistic graffiti style, his comment being “the guy who did it was sober for half of it anyway”. The worst one, although I had no opportunity to get a picture, was a completely unrecognisable dragon. He was showing us how one of the arms and the foot wasn’t even attached properly and it just looked like a mess of faded black lines.

His story was that on his eighteenth birthday, him and his friends got drunk and decided to get a tattoo. The picked this particular tattoo shop because, get this, they also sold bongs. They decided to smoke weed with the tattooist, after which he asked them if they wanted a tattoo. This turned into almost a game where they each stood in front of a wall of designs and pointed to a random one. They then got these tattoos, while drunk and stoned, from an also stoned tattooist, and the results were absolutely shocking.

He didn’t seem too bothered by his terrible tattoo, he just laughed and said “we probably should have waited until afterwards to get high, but oh well”. 

All I can commend him on is finally getting a tattoo where the artist was sober for the entire duration.

This is my own story about how stumbling across your page saved me from my own ignorance. I was stretching at the time and by stretching, I mean shoving acrylic tapers in my ears that were two sizes too big. Eventually the inevitable happened; one of my ears got a nasty blowout. I quickly took them out and looked online for modification sites for help. I stumbled across Awful Mods and read through easily 20 pages of submissions. I have three self pierced holes and four done with a gun, which I was completely unaware was bad. I signed all of the anti gun petitions and vowed never to use them again. I went and got my daith pierced in a very reputable shop as well as my navel and stretched back up safely, following directions you guys have posted as closely as possible. I also got a tattoo for my 15th birthday (legal in my state with parental consent) at the same reputable shop that I go to for my piercings. I try to educate my friends on what not to do and discourage their self piercing attempts. My friend recently offered to “make me some gauges” out of polymer clay, which I declined and warned her not to use. I credit this blog alone with most of my modification interest and knowledge. Thank you guys and keep up the amazing work!

As an employee of Hot Topic in Virginia, I would like to point out that our body jewelry is tested to be nickel free. Also, the wonderful man who does all my piercings (20+ years experience in the best shop in my town, the owner, Joe Hagerty, shits awards for his tattooing) agrees with me, that aside from our acrylic, our jewelry is very decent, more so than Spencer’s (Who have REALLY fucked up my ears before by selling me shitty silicons.) Also, the workers in the store do not label the jewelry. We buy as a third party seller. It was Morbid Metals that mislabeled. Also, with many companies, return policy is a store-to-store thing. We will accept all body jewelry at my store for returns and exchanges, damage them out, and continue on. I’m really sorry to hear that the person had such a terrible experience with our jewelry. I buy most of my jewelry from my store and have never had a problem like that, and had it been my store, I would’ve made sure that they could have been returned. That was just not okay. Mistakes happen, and most likely they were mistakenly labeled by the other company that we buy from. 

I will say a good thing to do in ANY Hot Topic, is find the person with the best piercings. My store, all of us are pierced by professionals and are great to talk to. I realize in other stores it could be different. They’re uneducated, they don’t care, or both. I personally always try to make sure people get either metal or silicone. But I had a bad experience with acrylic so I stay as far away from it as possible and try to direct other’s in that direction. 

But yeah anyways, I just felt like explaining a few things and I hope no one else has a problem like that, and if anyone wants to here my personal rages about having to sell some of that jewelry, just message me :3 I may be an employee, but I still have my pet peeves! (Like idiots who jump 4 sizes with silicone after I basically beg them not too)

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MODERATOR COMMENT:
Nickel free, eh? So what the fuck was it then that I had a reaction to in the steel tunnels I bought from HT? The reaction that prompted me to downsize completely and restretch, that wasn’t the result of nickel (which I’ve been allergic to my whole life) in the cruddy jewelry I bought from HT? And those knock-off silicone (not silicon, they are different) plugs made of who-knows-what grade that may or may not be body safe? Sounds like a good deal and quality jewelry right there. I have bought my fair share of HT jewelry, but the only things worth anything were the glass, which is a bit wonky anyway, but at least it’s not toxic or anything.

Return policy thing…meh. I guess you could damage it out as some people have suggested, but for something that’s been in the body, you open it, it’s yours and I don’t think that’s a ridiculous policy to have.

And your store might be great, but a lot of people’s stores aren’t, so I will always always always recommend going in cautiously and if an employee is giving stretching advice and it seems off, don’t feel pressured into buying things. And I don’t think I will ever recommend going to spencer’s for jewelry. Might as well search through scrap metal…

-Kat

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And all stainless steel jewelry has some nickel in it… Not sure what tests you’re referring to, but they’re totally bogus.

Support your friendly neighborhood piercers instead and get good jewelry and good advice every time (provided you’re going to a good piercer, obv). :P

- Hayley