Oh, one last thing for Eleusis: it’s good that they use a brand new needle every time; they should. But an autoclave is a necessity for even a brand new never-been-used needle. A new needle may be clean, but you don’t want clean, you want sterile.
OK, I heard about a place to get this done. It’s called Ocean Mystique. Anyone in Virginia heard of this place?
Well with this particular place (Tatu Tatoo in Chicago)- the needles come in sterile packaging, like a hypodermic needle or the finger-prickers used for drawing blood from your fingertip.
The jewelry, on the other hand, is cleaned with iodine and alcohol before insertion. I don’t know what is standard practice for the jewelry, but this seemed adequate.
I just got it pierced! It looks AWESOME! And it only hurt a little bit, although the thing is bleeding…grrrrr. But I like it.