An ounce of prevention is WORTH a pound of cure.

   It's been almost a year since we introduced our current schedule at ANOMALY of bundling up to three piercing services for one single price. In that time we have seen a very unexpected side effect arise: the emergence of price shoppers. Now don't get me wrong all of us want to make sure we are paying a fair price for the things we acquire in life, and none of us want to feel ripped off. Some of us even go so far to get the best deal that we exhaust more time and energy in seeking out the bargain than the actual value of what was saved. As the old adage goes, time is money. I know my life is pretty busy and every moment I spend needs to have some reward for me to justify it. In some cases that reward is intrinsic: be it the joy I feel seeing my friend's daughter perform in her first high school color guard half time show; or the recharge I get from getting away for a weekend into nature and letting my mind and body fully relax. In both of those situations I don't get a financial reward, but the time is still well spent and I am rewarded fully in another sense. If I spend all day on the telephone trying to price match phone service providers just so I can save $5 per month, however, then I personally feel like my time has been wasted. Especially considering I could have likely put in a little effort working that day and made profit well enough to cover paying that extra $5 per month for a very long time. Sometimes though, the enticement of a deal makes us very willing to go out of our way to "earn" said deal.

   When potential new clients call to ask solely about price, we often have a hard time communicating with them. Obviously we want to answer their questions, but price alone does not account for the entirety of our service here. The simple fact is we will almost always be the most expensive place in town. Hands down. But there are reasons for that, and it's pretty hard to communicate those reasons to someone in less than ten seconds. It's even harder to communicate them effectively without sounding rude or snobby. Many years ago we started embracing the term "jewelry snob" because if being a snob means you won't settle for unsafe materials at exorbitant rip off pricing then we are definitely snobs. We even had little buttons printed up with photos of jewelry made by Body Vision Los Angeles, one of our favorite local jewelers who also happen to be the cream of the crop the world over. If we seem snobbish when it comes to quality, it's because we know that the alternative really is garbage. But nobody likes to be known as snooty. None of us want to be thought of as rude, especially when the truth of the matter is all of our extra demands are designed to benefit the end user. Our clients are the ones who end up with better quality everything, and a cleaner and more comfortable experience. Meanwhile we actually make LESS PROFIT in order to bring these things to them. None of us are getting rich here at ANOMALY. Far from it. We do this for a living because we love it, and because we love it we refuse to cut corners or do it less than best. Unfortunately that means we pay more to be able to do things in a certain manner, we'll just call it "the right way." The more it costs us to operate, the more we have to charge our clients. When our operating expenses came down last October by relocating into a smaller space we passed on the savings to our clients by bundling up to three piercings for the same service cost. For the average client getting three piercings, this saves them between $100 to $200. That's a pretty substantial savings, far more than they would ever save even if they had gone to one of those novelty piercing studios that use substandard jewelry.

   We realize though that it is hard from a consumer perspective to understand our pricing, if you are not a piercer you may think they are just random numbers pulled out of thin air. Let me take a moment to explain what all is involved in the average piercing. The first of which is a service fee. Service fees are currently $50 for up to three standard piercings on the same person in the same visit. Advanced piercings like genitals or surface piercings are $100 for the service fee for up to three. These prices do not include the jewelry, but we will get to that another time. The service fee itself includes everything the piercer will need to perform the piercing installation. Including, but not limited to:

1. Gauze - We use the best non-woven synthetic gauze we can get our hands on. Woven cotton gauze can sometimes be a bit rough and abrasive to the tissue, plus cotton fibers can come loose from the weaving and unintentionally get inside the healing piercing causing irritation and prolonged healing, not to mention unsightly growths or bumps around the area. We pay for the best gauze, which is also usually the most expensive gauze. There are no loose fibers to come unwoven because the product is not woven in the first place. The synthetic tissues are silky smooth and do not disrupt the area they are being use on or cause excessive trauma, and they are highly absorbent.
2. Skin Prep - You may have seen those studios that use that big bottle of chemical to clean you with, much like gun piercing kiosks at the mall. The problem with pop-top bottles of chemicals is that the product itself can easily become contaminated by air contact, leading to certain bacteria or fungi growing inside the actual chemical that should be preparing the area for a clean piercing. These bacteria and fungal spores often travel through the air on tiny dust particles too small for the naked eye to see, if they find a home in a dark moist environment like the inside of a product bottle, they can reproduce rather quickly often rendering the product itself completely ineffective. There have been documented cases of this happening in the past at studios and especially at mall ear piercing kiosks. In order to reduce any potential of this happening in our studio, ANOMALY employs the use of individually wrapped disposable swab sticks that are saturated during packaging with just enough of the skin prep chemical necessary for a procedure. Once the prep has been applied, we dispose of the applicator and use a completely new prepackaged single-use item for the next client. We also only use FDA approved medical grade skin preparations. Instead of being fooled by companies targeting the trend of body piercing and packaging hand soaps with the implication that they are skin preps, we stick to the tried and true methods that have been clinically tested for uses similar to ours. If you could imagine every time you took a shower, your body wash and shampoo and conditioner were all from a brand new container with just enough for a single use surely you would expect the cost to be pretty prohibitive. In fact most hotels recycle and repackage the tiny little shampoo bottles that are graciously supplied to each room. It's much more economical to buy large bulk products, but unfortunately for things like piercings which involve open wounds, it is not always the safest option. Our skin preps cost significantly more than the corner-cutting methods that are potentially dangerous.
3. Gloves - Everybody knows that gloves help cut down the spread of infectious organisms. Once upon a time food workers and tattoo artists, and even doctors rarely used disposable gloves if ever at all. Nowadays we see them employed at most businesses not only for the customer's benefit but also for the employee's. At ANOMALY we use a very specific brand and model of Nitrile gloves. Nitrile is a latex free alternative that provides great effectiveness in protecting the wearer. We don't want to run the risk of harming a client of ours who may have a latex sensitivity, we also don't want to increase the possibility of our employees obtaining similar sensitivities by constantly using latex. But more than just using latex free gloves, we use a very specific brand of glove because of their consistent performance and unparalleled quality assurance. We expect our gloves to come out of the box easily reducing the chance of contamination if removed inappropriately. We expect our gloves to have a certain thickness and pliability to allow the wearer to function as a piercer without compromising their safety. We want gloves that can withstand the pressures we may put them under in stressful situations so that our clients are never at risk of the glove breaking or tearing for no reason. Beyond all of this, we use pre-sterilized gloves for the actual moment the skin is punctured. There are some studies that suggest sterile gloves reduce the risk of infection even further, and one article recently even cited a case of bacterial outbreak on non-sterile gloves. Most studios use non-sterile exam gloves for everything they do because it is cost effective. We also use non-sterile exam gloves, but for non-critical purposes like house cleaning. When it actually comes to piercing, our gloves come wrapped and sterile in pairs just like they would for surgery. This is significantly more costly than the non-sterile bulk box of the same type of glove.
4. Tools - ANOMALY is a completely single-use only studio that disposes of tools as they are used. We try our hardest to minimize the amount of tools needed so that we have the smallest possible impact on the environment while still offering you the safest service. The truth of the matter is reused tools have a greater potential for contamination than brand new single use tools. Even if they are adequately processed and sterilized, used tools still run into an albeit small potential for something surviving the sterile cycle. Often your chances of something going wrong with the sterilization are one in a trillion or more, but it is still a chance that is greater if those tools have been in contact with potentially infectious body fluids. If the tool has not had contact with any fluids, even a failure in sterilization will not be nearly as serious of a potential infection risk. Using disposable tools adds a significant cost to the overhead of each piercing we perform. For jewelry changes we sometimes try to estimate these costs and add them in advance, for piercing services the fee is always the same to help offset the cost even though it rarely covers it completely.
5. Needles - Most other studios use needles that are made cheaply here in the US or imported from China in bulk, intended usually for the medical or veterinary industry. The metals the needles are made from often have thin walls that makes the needles easy to bend and easier to lose their sharp edges. They needles also have a different angle on the bevel that don't allow them to be as gentle to the tissue as the needles we use. We import our needles from Japan where they are made with the same pride and care as centuries of the finest swords and knife blades. The angle of the bevels have been calculated precisely to be the most advantageous for body piercing making a clean and smooth piercing procedure with as little trauma to the area as possible. in addition to that the needles are lined with a silicone coating so they can glide swiftly through the piercing area with little resistance and relatively little discomfort. The needles we use cost ten to twelve times more per needle than the ones used by most piercing studios.
6. Marking Implements - Most other studios use toothpicks and a product called Gentian Violet to make the marks on skin before conducting the piercing. The toothpicks are single use and disposable, but the slightly larger container of Gentian Violet is not. There are some cases where harmful bacteria have grown inside older bottles after continued air exposure, very similar to the skin prep we discussed earlier. At ANOMALY we use single use applicators that are pre-inked in a matrix, all we have to do is apply moisture to the matrix and we have a viable marking method. This gives the marking implements a much longer shelf life without the likelihood of contamination. Again, like the skin prep this method does incur a higher cost.
7. Sterilization - It is not only common practice, but also law in California that every body art facility have the ability to sterilize their supplies. Most studios use a type of large chamber steam sterilizer called an autoclave. the problem is many of those autoclaves are meant for laboratory use, sterilizing items that are neither porous, hollow or liquid. Tattoo tubes, piercing needles, receiving tubes and some parts of jewelry are all hollow. This means that many of those Type N gravity displacement sterilizers are not being used in a manner consistent with their intended use. There's a much higher probability of something surviving a sterile cycle or unintended results by using items sterilized against manufacturer suggestions. Once again ANOMALY employs standards above and beyond by using a Statim sterilizer. These are special active air removal autoclaves used in dental and surgical applications because of their reliability, their ability to sterilize hollow items, their incredible speed from a cold start to sterility, and because they are extremely gentle on delicate items. Sterilization is important, even in an all disposable studio because germs exist everywhere. All of our brand new jewelry and tools still need to be sterilized to make sure any potential exposure with possibly harmful germs is no longer an issue, if we used an inappropriate method then rates of infection are much more likely to increase. This special autoclave that we use does come with a cost that is sometimes more than five times the cost of the autoclaves used in other facilities. And that's not including the maintenance costs. In the rare occasions where we can use jewelry purchased outside of our studio, we still charge an additional sterilization fee to help offset the cost of operating and maintaining this wonderful piece of equipment. Jewelry purchased through us does not incur an extra fee.
8. Monitoring - In order to make sure our sterilization equipment is working accurately, ANOMALY uses both chemical and biological monitoring. Chemical Integrators are used to show that each cycle has reached the correct temperature, amount of steam pressure, and has stayed there for the correct amount of time to reach the criteria to kill germs. Biological monitoring, also known as spore testing, uses an active harmless spore to test the validity of the equipment being used. A third party laboratory incubates the control spores as well as spores that have been run through the autoclave. If there is growth in the control group and no growth in the autoclaved group, then it reasons that the equipment is working correctly. State legislation requires biological monitoring every month, but ANOMALY has been doing it long before it was a state regulation. In fact we do our biological monitoring weekly. State regulations require a Class V Integrator to be used for each sterilizer batch run, but ANOMALY has been using these same chemical monitors ever since we opened our doors. In fact we use one per client, not just one per batch. A more aggressive monitoring program gives us reassurance our equipment is operating properly, and it would allow us a much quicker alert if there were an issue. This monitoring program also costs us more than the average studio, as we are using the monitors much more frequently.
9. Continuing Education - ANOMALY employs only the highest trained piercers because we want our clients to have the best possible experience and easiest possible healing. Our piercers attend continuing education seminars that are geared toward their line of work. Every year we close for a week to attend the Association of Professional Piercers international educational conference, in addition to other seminars and intensive courses, OSHA approved Bloodborne Pathogens training, and First Aid and CPR training. In an effort to help our piercers always strive to be the best, the studio has incentives for its employees to always continue their education. Many other studios don't offer the same because they are less interested in investing back in their employees and more interested in profiting financially.
10. Piercer's Wage - Just as you would not expect a chef at a restaurant, or a hair stylist at a salon to work for free; we do not expect our piercers to do so either. ANOMALY piercers love what they do for a living and love the industry, this shows by their dedication and amount of extra hours off the clock spent in continued training and being involved in ethically minded industry groups. The truth is piercing is not always an easy occupation from which one may make a decent living wage. The ability for the piercer to pay their own rent and bills, support their families, and pursue a life that involves things other than just catering to clients all the time is directly related to the amount of piercings they do and the amount of tips they make (which in turn is related to how good they are at their job, one hand washes the other). Most piercers appreciate being a part of the experience in others' lives that they make do with what they can financially. The simple truth of the matter is, there are not a ton of piercers who have been at it over fifteen years that don't eventually either find new careers that have more stable pay or else end up owning their own studio. There are some, but there are far more who give up on piercing instead. Piercing clients get pierced for a variety of reasons. For some it is a way of taking control of their body, reclaiming themselves and their independence. For some it is a way to celebrate the passing of time or to mark important events. For some it is a cathartic physical process. For some it can be a tribute or memorial to a passed loved one. In all these cases there is an exchange of energy that can sometimes be taxing or draining for the practitioner. Most of us feed off of this exchange and appreciate not only the honor of participating in the process, but take seriously the responsibility we have to make this process the best we possibly can. For the best of us it is not "just a piercing"; this is a lifestyle. This is a time consuming, all encompassing condition that is inherently a part of our very human existence. We gladly partake in all it entails, but it should not come without the compensation of being able to pay our own way in the world. 

   These are just some of the considerations that are taken into account when deciding our service fee. In some instances clients who may feel they are too good to pay fair pricing for services will sometimes search out the cheapest option in town. They may think to themselves that a piercing is a simple matter of poking a hole and putting jewelry in. They severely undervalue the amount of time, energy and money a reputable piercing studio invests in order to correctly achieve the piercing. To the naked eye the cheaper option may seem the exact same, but to the trained eye the jewelry is harmful, the procedure cuts many corners, and often the visual aesthetic is simply just not the same quality. Sometimes these same clients wind up with sensitivities, infections, jewelry that falls apart, and even visits to their doctor. While circumstances that can effect these unfortunate outcomes are possible no matter where someone gets pierced, reputable studios like ANOMALY go to such great lengths to minimize the possibility of this happening that it makes a huge difference. So going back to the point I mentioned earlier about perceived saving not always being as great as actual savings, I often find myself wishing I had a tactful way to mention all of the horror stories and costly fixes I've seen my clients have to endure from some other studios on a regular basis. Perhaps if I could just say in under ten seconds to someone calling around about pricing that $50 plus jewelry is far less expensive than a trip to the emergency room in the middle of the night because your improperly pierced lip is inflamed beyond the craziest image of a collagen injection gone wrong, perhaps then they would understand that we are in the business of trying to do things right and not trying to just milk a couple of extra bucks out of them. Perhaps if I could relay how incredibly expensive several laser sessions can be to try to reduce the skin discoloration caused by the impurities in a cheap quality piece of jewelry, then the person on the phone might realize that a few extra dollars now for quality is well worth it. Perhaps if I could somehow relate how incredibly irritating and costly it can be for most of the price shoppers who get pierced at the cheapest guy in town and then STILL END UP HAVING TO PAY TO GET REPIERCED BY US LATER, without any refund or compensation from the other studio that jacked them up... perhaps then I could spare many people from terrible experiences. I hear about them every day from new clients who have come to us to avoid paying someone else and still ending up dissatisfied. If only I had a concise and tactful way of illustrating all of this instead of writing a lengthy blog post about it. But alas I do not, and so I answer price questions and allow people to respond rudely to me as they hang up the phone. Maybe it's true that some of us do just need to learn things the hard way. Regardless, one truth still remains: no matter how much someone thinks they may not be able to afford the pricing of our piercings; I guarantee you we cannot afford to properly offer it for less.

As always I thank you for your time and consideration when reading my words. I hope that someone out there appreciates what I have to write as much as I appreciate having the outlet for it. If you have any questions about safe body piercings, please feel free to write me at anomalyart@gmail.com and I will do my best to respond in a timely manner.

Wado (Thank You),
-Brett Perkins