I’m going (rather impulsively, but a piercing’s not a lifelong commitment like a tattoo) to get a helix (big round cartilage part of the ear) piercing this afternoon, and I don’t know the tipping etiquette. I think the piercing itself, with jewelry, will be around $60 (they don’t guesstimate over the phone). I don’t think the piercer is the owner of the shop. As piercings go, this is a very easy one, a cakewalk for the piercer and something he could probably do in his sleep. From walking in to walking out will probably take about 15 minutes or so, and 13 of that devoted to the compulsory legal and care advice, 1 minute 30 to take my money and make change, and 23 seconds for the actual piercing.
I tip for tattoos, not sure what to do for piercings. And yes, they use a real piercing needle and not a gun.
I didn’t think of it when I went and got one done this past summer. Mine it was the owner who did it though, and being close to the college they probably don’t expect it (poor students) but now I wonder.
I usually tip $10 for anything under $100 – piercing and stretching. I think I may have tipped $20 for a branding and for a scarification. Those were a year apart. I’m not totally insane.
I tipped $5 for both of mine, but it was a shop that let you bring your own jewelry in (they sterilized it for you before they did the piercing) so it only cost $20 each time.
Why does everyone get a tip these days just for doing their job? Tips are for someone who doesn’t make a living wage without them, like a waiter or delivery driver. What next? Tips for the mailman, the plumber, and my dry-cleaner’s desk-worker?
I’m reminded of how folks used to tip the royal executioner before being beheaded. If he didn’t get his little bag of gold, he might just get sloppy. That’s when it takes two strokes of the axe to get it done. :eek:
Lizard, I’m pretty sure the set-up is like a hairdresser or a strip club, where he has to pay the shop for the privilege of working there. Between that and the fact that the jewelry and autoclave cost him something, I thought this might be in the realm of tippable individual service. I don’t think it’s a common enough industry to have unwritten or written standards around tipping, but I’d like to be nice to the man putting a hole in my head.
'Sides, I already feel a little too suburban mom like to be entirely comfortable going to a place where people get things poked into their privates…I’d like to get the etiquette right.
It’s solely a piercing studio (though they also make jewelry, do tattoo removal and scarification) and owned by the guy who does most of it, especially anything not so basic (like my hood). He opened it a few years ago, but has been doing this for 14 years now.
I tipped my piercer, and she owns the shop. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
And when my piercing was still relatively new, I could go back and she would change out my jewelry for me (I wasn’t comfortable with doing it myself at first).
Tip a piercer? Whatever for?
Heck, mid-summer I bought a 14K gold nipple ring, and they said if I wanted to hang around, their piercer would change it for me, since it was larger than what I currently had in there. No expectation of a tip on either side.
Yay! I got the cutest widdle biddy ball, and a big ol’ crush on my piercer, Zack. (Who, in case she’s reading this, very suavely dropped a mention of his girlfriend into the conversation and had excellent professional boundaries. le sigh) He was very good, it hardly hurt at all (and I’m the one who passed out from getting my second lobe piercing done about 10 years ago!). He certainly didn’t seem to expect a tip, but he also didn’t seem embarrassed or awkward, either. I just handed him $70 and said, “Here’s $60 for the shop and $10 for you.” and he smiled and said thanks. He said if anything worked loose or I wanted to change jewelry after it healed to give him a call and he’d help me out.
Tattoo Factory in Uptown. I don’t know how their tattoos are, but I highly recommend Zack for piercings.
I’ve never heard of a stripper paying the house. I seriously doubt that happens, except maybe in some place like Vegas or Bangkok, where sex work is a monolithic industry that draws in many people, and supply outstrips demand. The ads for strippers I’ve seen offer small hourly rate, such as $10, plus tips. So it was more like being a waiter, though with much better money up front. The main income is up to the employee either way, though.
Check the fine print. The hourly wage may be $10 an hour, but then they often have to pay “stage fees” of $50 or more a night, as well as something for the DJ, something for the bartenders and something for the guy that walks her out to her car after close.
My college roommate was a dancer. Still is, in several clubs in three states, and that’s pretty standard, from what she tells me.
When I pierced, I never expected a tip, but they were certainly welcome. It’s a bit more than the 15 minutes you see them, of course: I cut and polished my own needles with a Dremel, sterilized them and the jewelry, kept the piercing area spotless and cleaned completely between each job, disposed of biohazard properly, made sure we had plenty of supplies and inventory, etc. It wasn’t rocket surgery or back-breaking labor, but it could be stressful and took a little hustle. I never thought a non-tipper was a cheapskate, but a few bucks extra for a job well done was always nice.
I just got my first tattoo a couple of weeks ago, and reading this thread has suddenly made me feel VERY guilty about not tipping the artist. I had no idea, and the thought didn’t even occur to me. I’m talking to the friend I went with about this right now, and she said she didn’t know either.
This is a little gold ball in the cartilage part of your ear … and you paid $70? I can’t recall where you live, (if that has anything to do with it), but I had this done about 10 years ago and it cost me only the cost of the earring. Like $10! Have prices gone up this much?
I hope you don’t think the piercer makes $60 a shot for piercing. When I pay that $60 for a piercing it includes the jewelry, which is not cheap. And generally I get the piercing done competently, within a sterile field, in a way that looks aesthetically pleasing, and that takes advantage of my unique anatomy. The sterile field alone is worth a tip.
I’m in Chicago. I could have had it done for free at a kiosk in the mall (I think - their website says “Free Ear Piercing with Purchase of Jewelry” and somewhere else it mentions they do cartilage, but I don’t know if that’s part of the “free” offer or not.) but then I’d be getting my cartilage pierced at a kiosk in the mall. With a piercing gun, novice piercer and the lack of sterility that entails, and probably an exterior threaded post (ow!).
As I mentioned in another thread recently, I passed out cold the last time someone used a gun on my ear, and that was down in the lobe. No way I’m ever letting that happen again.
Nope, I want a place as sterile (more, probably) as my doctor’s office with a guy who’s done a gazillion of these and has a dozen of his own, using a nice sharp needle. With a surgical steel post and ball, so there’s literally no maintenance required other than to keep my grubby hands off it and rinse it with warm water once a day - skin and body parts don’t adhere to surgical steel like they do other metals, so there’s none of this alcohol/soap/triple antibiotic ointment wiggle the thing thrice daily and delay the healing process nonsense that I dealt with for my lobe piercings. He also, like **11811 **says, recommended placement and discussed what type of jewelry I ultimately want to ensure it will look good and sit right in that place with my anatomy.
The fact that it hurt for about 30 seconds, and now three days later I’m already *sleeping *on that side with no discomfort and no lymphatic drainage, bleeding or redness tells me he done good. I don’t feel ripped off in the slightest, even if I probably could have saved a few bucks driving out to the 'burbs.
