So, last week we talked about all the information we need in order to make your body jewellery gift the best it can possibly be… So this week is the annual Rogue Gift Guide, where we’ll talk about all the different ways you can gift jewellery!
We will be breaking this up into different categories so you can find the BEST gift for your loved one… Or yourself!
Best Gifts Under £60
With a small budget, you can still do awesome gifts!
These are probably our most popular pieces of jewellery, and you can definitely see why! Safe, implant-grade and guaranteed to sparkle for a lifetime. These Titanium pieces come in a rainbow of different colours, sizes and styles to match any personality.
Neometal Opals and Swarovski Crystals are the perfect gift for pretty much any piercing.
Opals pack such a punch of colour – From classic White Opals to rich jewel tones like these!
Give the gift of safe piercings this Christmas! You can book your friend or loved one in for a piercing with ourselves for as little as £50 including super high quality basics from Neometal, Anatometal, Inari Organics, and many other verified safe brands. Pick from any one of our four qualified and experienced piercers and benefit from a lifetime of support after the piercing as well!
A simple, safe piercing is the ultimate gift for any loved one with a passion for piercing!
Perfect for adding a little bit more sparkle to any piercing. We love Trinities in Philtrum piercings, lobe piercings, conches and helixes. They pack a punch whilst still being super dainty!
Trinities are so cute!
Gift Guide – Nose Piercings
Nose piercings are one of our favourite piercings to perform! The jewellery options are pretty much infinite, too! Here are our top picks for nose piercing jewellery that you can purchase in time for Christmas!
The Anatometal ‘Zia’
This item is supremely teeny tiny, and ideal for both fresh and healed nose piercings. It is made from solid 18k Gold, and carries a full lifetime warranty. If you’re looking for a unique piece that will give you a lot of sparkle in a dainty setting, then the Anatometal Zia is the one for you!
The BVLA Tiny Quad Bead is the perfect tiny piece for those of us who prefer a more simple piece. With no gemstones, you don’t need to worry about matching this to your existing collection – It is ready to go! At only 2mm across, this is by far the most dainty piece you can imagine!
Lobe piercings are probably the place where you can get most creative! Wether you have one set, doubles, triples or more, lobe piercings are really fun to curate.
The BVLA Mini Kandy
There are SO many ways to wear a Mini Kandy. There’s a reason they are the most popular piece we stock from BVLA! With so many choices of both Gold colour and gemstones, there is a Mini Kandy for everyone!
Another absolute classic, the Anatometal Tri Bead is a super dainty, super versatile piece. If you aren’t sure if your loved one will like it… Worry not! These are universally loved and a pretty safe choice!
The cutest! Perfect in pretty much any placement.
Gift Guide – Cartilage Piercings
Cartilage piercings can sometimes benefit from a statement piece of jewellery. This is often where we love to see ‘pow’ jewellery!
The BVLA Afghan
The Afghan is a really gorgeous piece – We have two available right now! The detail on this piece is just amazing. The perfect gift if you want to treat a loved one to something truly special.
The most incredible piece! This solid naturally forming Quartz is bound in a band of solid Gold. Such a unique piece! This would look absolutely amazing in a conch piercing – Move quickly as these are limited in stock!
If you’re looking for something that truly packs a punch this Holiday season, then the Afghan Pear is definitely the piece for you! This large-and-in-charge item is the perfect choice for a statement conch piercing. Available in icy White Gold, or soft and rich Oregon Sunstone… These pieces are truly special and will not last long in our cabinet!
If your loved one is a little bit of a piercing fanatic, then custom ordering them jewellery for their Holiday gift is the best way to spread the love across the seasons! Although no custom orders will arrive in time for Christmas, the promise of their perfect jewellery in 2023 is definitely incredibly exciting!
You can either bring them into the studio for a Jewellery Consultation with our jewellery expert Kat, or do it all via email! Head to BVLA, Anatometal, Quetzalli, Seasons, and Dusk for ALL the inspiration. Give us a shortlist, or simply give us the vibes that your loved one will like and we can absolutely go from there!
Contact Kat@roguepiercing.co.uk or book a jewellery consultation with them via our website!
Gift Guide – Best All-Rounders
Still not sure what to get? Unsure of your loved ones style but 99% sure they own ears? Then these are the options for you!
The BVLA Pave Disc
This super tiny simple piece would work excellently in any piercing – From lobes, to nose, to helixes, tragus, forward helix and more. If you aren’t sure – Then this is the one for you!
A true cult classic, we think the Marquise Fan might be one of our most popular designs in the history of ever. We currently have a stock in both White and Yellow Gold, set with classic White Swarovski crystals. These could be worn excellently in traditional first lobe piercings, or in pretty much any other cartilage piercing for an abundance of sparkle. If you’re stuck on gifts… This one is pretty much a guaranteed winner.
So there you have it! A veritable smorgasboard of gift ideas, for every budget! Remember – It’s not about the value of the jewellery. We can work with any and all budgets, wether they are small or endless.
It’s about giving the gift of safe piercings, which is priceless!
With the Christmas season officially upon us, I’m sure we’re all starting to feel the stress that comes with trying to find that perfect Christmas gift to wrap and sit under the tree. And if you have someone special in your life who loves body jewellery or body piercings, it might be trickier than you think to just pick up some pretty jewellery and encase it in a pretty box. But do not worry, as I have written this guide to help you achieve that wonderful gift for when Santa arrives this year.
So, what is there to really know?
Well first of all, body jewellery does not come in a standard size. Every piercing, and every person will require a specific size of jewellery for a comfortable fitting. This is because bodies are not uniform. For example, you wouldn’t wear a size 5 pair of shoes if you were a size 3, they’d be too big!
To help us find you the right sizing, we need to know a few factors. The thickness/gauge needed, as we might provide a size too thick or thin! (Helix piercings can be pierced anywhere from 16g/1.2mm to 4g/5mm and more!)
We also need to know the length for studs, or diameter for rings, as anything too long or short can cause discomfort, snagging, pressure, pinching, tilted angles, or possible migration.
And then there is the style of threading. At Rogue, we mostly use threadless jewellery as we find it more secure, and easier to work with in and outside of the studio. However, some piercings require an internally threaded piece, such as inner oral piercings, as if the jewellery becomes loose, you do not want a pin poking about. Your loved one may also have a personal preference, for example they may already have a vast collection of interchangeable threadless jewellery, or they might prefer threaded pieces.
BVLA 14CT YELLOW GOLD MOON
So, how can you find this information?
Well, of course there is always straight up asking and being honest with your loved one who may give you the direct answers. Or you could bring them into your local studio to choose their own gift, but where is the fun in that?
Piercers love helping out, it’s our job! You might be able to find a reason to bring your loved one into the studio and our piercers will discretely find out all of this information for you! We can take them into a private room for a quick check-up, or ask for some photos of their nicely healed piercing, or even talk about the new jewellery that has just arrived! Just make sure your piercer has prior knowledge, with either an email or a quick phone call! We want to help make your Christmas extra special!
Can you order something specifically, not in our cabinets?
The answer is yes, and no. At Rogue, we take a huge amount of custom orders for all of our suppliers, and they are getting bigger each time. However, if you are looking for Christmas presents, probably not. Most of our suppliers have a long wait time from the date we place the order. Depending who we order from, our current estimates are 4-30 weeks. For example, BVLA’s current ship time is 6 months. If you want to place custom orders for Christmas presents, I’d definitely start looking in spring/summer time.
So, why all this trouble? Surely you can just return it if it’s wrong, right?
Unfortunately not, all body jewellery is non-refundable and non-exchangeable. This is because jewellery is very intimate with each person as it passes through the body. And when it leaves the studio in a nice little box, we have no way to know what has happened to it. Now yes, it may have just sat in a tidy little box, but it also may have been dropped and scratched or damaged. It may have also been in touch with body fluids, such as blood. We can never be certain, and therefore we have to be cautious for the safety of our staff, studio and clients!
Returns aren’t accepted for body jewellery because of health and safety. We wish no harm on anybody, and reusing jewellery is a health hazard. If worn for long enough, a biofilm of your body’s bacteria will form around the jewellery, which means it is yours forever. Body jewellery is often designed intrinsically, and isn’t very easy to deep clean.
Okay, what other options are available!
GIFT CARDS! Gift cards are a fantastic idea, as they give your loved one full creative control. At Rogue, you can buy gift cards directly from us starting at £20. This allows your loved one to choose between new jewellery or a new piercing as well!
A lot of people may feel gift cards are an easy way out of a Christmas present, but if you know your loved one is going to enjoy it, and use it, then why not! It’s not always easy to fake an excuse to come into a store, or choose the right gemstones or style. It can be a lot of pressure or a lot of money, to get something wrong. This is why gift cards can be super useful.
Your Christmas shopping doesn’t have to be completely complicated! There are many options available to achieve that big smile and hug at Christmas. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Happy Holidays!
It’s a Sunday evening after a very busy weekend at Rogue. The weather outside is cold and drizzly but deep in the basement of Rogue, sitting on the floor like goblins, Gemma and Kat have an open and honest discussion about Kat’s journey so far. Kat joined Rogue three years ago and is now the studio manager and jewellery specialist. Growing up in Wales and moving to the big Nottingham city, Kat is now studying for their Master’s degree alongside keeping this Rogue circus going!
Gemma: Tell me about your first experience with piercing.
Baby Kat with minimal piercings! (a Katten…)
Kat: My first experience with piercing was similar to a lot of peoples, it was at a high street shop with a piercing gun. I was 11. My mum took me there because that’s… just where you went. And I had an awful time healing them. My first piercing at a “real” piercing studio was at a place called Nobby’s in Carmarthen, Wales (Should out to Mike, the piercer there at the time!). The piercing room was in the attic of the studio. It was carpeted, had grimy fabric curtains and I was pierced with non-sterile jewellery directly out of a wet autoclave (with no lid!) that was on a wooden table next to the piercing chair. I asked to get my second lobes pierced and they said they’d run out of jewellery! They gave me the address of a local head shop that also sold piercing jewellery, where I went and bought the jewellery that they then put through the ultrasonic and pierced me with. And of course as an indestructable 14 year old, I healed them like a treat.
My next piercing experience really started when I started uni. I went to a local Nottingham studio and I had an okay experience. There wasn’t really any aftercare advice or customer service. After that, I decided I wanted some fancy jewellery and when I went back to that studio, they recommended I visit a gentleman called Aiden, who just opened a shop in Nottingham a couple of weeks previous. So two weeks after Aiden opened Rogue, I walked in the front door and bought my first piece of BVLA.
G: So you started as a client at Rogue before you joined the team?
Absolutely! I would just come in, get a piercing, upgrade some jewellery, have a chat, hang out, ask questions. And I’m guessing Aiden saw something good in me because he invited me to a suspension event he was holding at the studio. It was literally days before Covid hit. The suspension event was my first taste of the real UK (and international) piercing industry. I met a lot of people I’m now really good friends with. That’s where I met Andre! But I was living alone in Nottingham when the first lockdown was looming. The borders had shut, so I couldn’t go home to Wales and Rogue really was my island in the storm. It was the only thing I had left. So I just kept turning up.
As the lockdowns came, we suddenly had an influx of jewellery from the closure of another high-quality piercing studio, most of which was completely unlabelled in tubs and plastic bags, all jumbled together, different sizes and styles. So it was my job to basically be a detective and try and figure out what was what, what brand, what size. Some BVLA, some Anatometal, some Industrial Strength, and a whole lot of labrets! There must have been 600 to 700 individual items that I had to figure out what they were! That took most of the first lockdown. Then we were photographing it, adding to the web store, building the web store from a very small collection to the absolute monster it is now. And that’s where I learnt a lot of my basic jewellery skills. Just having to look at the fine details between an Anatometal clear CZ and a NeoMetal clear CZ, both prongs, both in titanium. Trying to seperare them out by the little difference. And all the various labrets… Labrets were a nightmare.
G: You’re the studio manager and jewellery specialist at Rogue, what do those roles entail?
K: There’s a bit of everything. Staff management, jewellery management, stock control, free therapist… Managing clients, being Aiden’s personal assistant, organising guest artists and flights and hotels and UKAPP membership, writing blogs, organising the social media. In about two and a half years, I’ve helped to grow the Rogue social media accounts from about 1000 to nearly 10,000 followers. It’s been hard work and I think a lot of it has been down to consistency and the quality of the content. I know a lot of studios where it’s quantity, not quality and that means they can really struggle to build the following. But also, the following isn’t that important. It’s the people who walk through the front door that counts.
The vast majority of the people who follow us on Instagram aren’t even in the UK . But I think people can look at our Instagram and get a sense of not just the work that we produce, but who we are as people That is something I’ve always struggled with though, because we do “sell” a lot of ourselves as part of our work. We could put up way bigger boundaries and not get so personal on the social media. But I feel like it’s a personal service and you have to give a little bit of yourself for people to trust you.
G: As the first Associate Member of the UKAPP, I know you get asked this a lot but, why aren’t you a piercer?
K: I feel like piercing is the least interesting part of being in a piercing studio. I feel like although there’s a lot of techniques you can learn and there’s loads of different ways to put that jewellery into someone, you can still have a much wider impact on the industry by running a good business and managing a good studio. And I think actually piercing people would ham up a lot of my time that could be better spent elsewhere. I love talking to people about jewellery, I love working with clients and making the sales. That’s the bit I enjoy.
G: You’ve got a BSc Hons degree in Biology and you’ve recently started your Masters in Microbiology and Immunology. How’s that going?
K: It’s going really well. I feel like I’m a lot more mentally prepared to tackle the workload this time around. I have a lot more self-discipline. I no longer think that getting up at 7AM to go to a 9AM lecture is that hard. I no longer look at 3 hours worth of lectures in one day and think “oh my god, I can’t do this!”
I would consider myself quite a “modified person” and now that I’m studying for my Master’s, I can absolutely see why some people make a choice between pursuing higher education and pursuing their body modification journeys. It’s a difficult topic to talk about, but the fact that I have a 6mm chunk of metal in my face has no bearing on how well I can learn. I would love to see what further education and academia looks like in 20 or 30 years because… the amount of students we pierce? – some of them have to keep ’em in. My academic achievements aren’t recognized by piercers and they aren’t recognized by academics because of my modifications. It’s quite frustrating sometimes.
It’s very difficult, but I do feel like if I was to pursue a career in academia, I would face significant challenges because of the body modification work, the piercings, the tattoos. A huge amount of your funding and your career mobility is down to face-to-face interviews or who you know within academia. And if those people don’t want to know you because you look like a certain way, you are stuck. And that is really annoying. In my master’s degree so far, I’ve felt like I have to work three times as hard as everyone else to prove myself.
Graduating in 2021, BSc Biology (Hons).
G: You taught a class at UKAPP this year about Piercing Wound Healing Dynamics, do you have plans to teach again now that you’re back in education?
K: My class this year went better than I possibly could have expected. I did a lot of public speaking when I was younger during my college years and my first year of uni but because of Covid, I felt like my confidence was knocked quite a bit. But as soon as I got up on that stage and opened my mouth, it was like I’d never stopped! It was so much fun, the engagement was good and I think I pitched it at the right level. I would absolutely love to teach again. I think I will be constantly editing and updating the class to make sure it’s dialled in and accurate to current scientific understanding. But I would love to also teach about infection control and aseptic technique and what an infection actually is and how/why your body’s reacting to it the way it does. I think that would be super interesting.
G: As a very active member in the online piercing industry, have you faced any difficulties because you’re not a piercer yourself?
K: Absolutely, I have. It’s not normally to my face, but I do hear about people discussing my relevancy within the industry and whether my opinion’s actually worth anything. Some piercers think I’m disrupting people who are very comfortable doing things a certain way, because they’ve always done it that way, and they haven’t seen issues from their methods. For example, non sterile gloves for piercing procedures, poor hand hygiene, wearing watches, rings, acrylic nails. I want to ban them! People have issues with that because they don’t see the effects, and they think I’m being pedantic or splitting hairs. But it’s someone’s body. It’s somebody’s health. Being pedantic is kind of the point. And if you’re not being pedantic about hygiene, you shouldn’t be piercing people. If you didn’t know any better, that’s one thing, but if you know better, you should do better.
When I’m trying to educate people, I will always try to come at it like they are trying their best because nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks “I’m gonna mess people up today and I’m not gonna wash my hands while I do it.” Every person out there is doing the best they can with the knowledge and the resources that they have. We are not here to gatekeep information. We’re here to try and make sure everyone’s doing the best they can. If every piercing studio in the UK was working at our level, I wouldn’t be bitter about it. I would be immensely proud, and then look at ways we can go further.
G: You’ve been really vocal about your neurodivergence, how do you balance that with managing Rogue and studying for your Master’s degree?
K: It’s a struggle sometimes. It’s not easy and it’s not always fun. It’s mainly about knowing when to communicate when you’re struggling. Everyone at Rogue is super supportive and everyone here wants everyone else to be doing their best all the time. It’s about knowing your limits. And I’m not good at that, but I’m working on it. I think when I first started, I wanted to prove myself and I wanted to prove that I could do it and that I was worth the money being spent on me. But I was consistently (and without fail) pushing myself to burnout on a weekly basis. Now I’ve been at it a while and I think I’m finally getting to a point where I know my limits. My autism can make communicating difficult and I don’t enjoy talking about things sometimes but it’s definitely worth doing.
G: If you could change anything about the UK piercing industry, what would it be and why?
K: I wish piercers were more open-minded. I feel like if people were more willing to learn and change, the industry would be in a much better position overnight. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. If people were more open minded to actually listening and enacting change, the industry would be light years ahead.
Another thing I’d change, let’s stop this massive push towards everyone being self-employed and running their studios. Not every piercer can possibly be qualified to run their own business successfully. And there is absolutely no shame in admitting that. There’s lots of benefits to being employed! Like sick pay, holiday pay, and you have people to bounce ideas off and learn from. One of the main benefits is you’ve got massive amounts of support. Even if it’s something as tiny as forgetting to open something but you’ve already got sterile gloves on – you can always ask for help and you have that support. And that shit happens all the time. It could be something small as that. It could be something like, ‘I need someone to help me assist on this genital piercing.’ Or something hasn’t gone quite to plan and even if something goes wrong, you have 1 – 4 people around who are all specifically trained in what to do in that moment.
Kat, Jay and their chunky septums.
It also helps with your general learning and your confidence as a person. And because we work as such a dynamic team and we have that support at all times, we can offer piercings to people who other people might feel uncomfortable with. For example, we do a lot of genital piercings at Rogue. Obviously, genital piercing and kink have a huge history. Because we work in a team, there’s multiple people around and you are never alone with that client. The vast, vast majority of clients are just excited about a process that they’ve potentially been looking forward to for 30 years. We’re very privileged to be able to offer a huge amount of intimate work to a huge amount of different people across many, many walks of life for many different reasons. A lot of what we do is because we are super proud of the history of body piercing! You wouldn’t get BVLA, Anatometal, NeoMetal, you wouldn’t get the tiny little gold tri-bead in a nose piercing, you wouldn’t get to pierce a kid’s first lobes at nine – without the hefty kink and genital work of the past. And I feel like if you just focus on one of those things without at least acknowledging the presence of the other, you’re doing the industry a disservice.
And that’s another benefit of working in a team. We have piercers who offer a range of services. Not every piercer will perform every piercing that is available on our menu. It’s just about working with different skill sets and where people excel and playing into their strengths while working to improve their weaknesses.
G: You wear a lot of BVLA, if you could design a piece what would it look like?
K: I honestly think I’d want to design wedding bands and engagement rings over body jewellery. BVLA have got body jewellery down, they know what they’re doing and if you can imagine it, they’ve probably made it already. I really love their classic designs, the ones that are statement pieces but still very mature. ‘Afghans’, ‘trillions’, ‘marquise fans’. Pieces where the gemstones really speak for themselves. If I had to choose though, I’d love to see more work with channel settings because they’re really lovely.
G: A lot of people have full BVLA piercing curations thanks to you and your artistic vision, talk us through the curation process.
K: Honestly, it’s the most fun part of my week every single time. When you book in, it’s about 20 minutes, but it depends on how long you’ve got. If you’ve got an hour and a half to spend talking jewellery, I’ll sit and drink tea and talk jewellery with you for hours.
Talking about jewellery with clients is really personal, we get really into it. Especially with long-term curation projects, you can be in communication with people for a long time, sometimes over a few years and you really get to know those people over that time. Body jewellery is such a personal thing and sometimes you’re designing a curation that someone will wear for the rest of their life. You have to know that person well enough that you can make suggestions about what they would like. The most important thing is communication and being able to get your ideas onto paper and make sure that they know exactly what they’re getting when you translate that into concept into body jewellery and then that jewellery into a reality.
Oftentimes, people are spending thousands on curation and in order to ensure that it is a worthy investment, you have to make sure they’re confident in you every step of the way. There shouldn’t be any doubts in their mind that you are using their money wisely to create a life-long piece of art that they can wear forever.
Email kat@roguepiercing.co.uk to start your curation!
G: What’s in the future for Rogue?
K: Taking over the world, obviously… I feel like me and Aiden are always doing plans and plots. In the next 18 months I’d love to be able to launch a Patreon with piercer educational content. Because, as many people have so kindly pointed out, some of the content that I want to put out into the industry isn’t super relevant to the blog system that we already have. And I feel like, especially with the knowledge that I have and the qualifications I have behind me, and the experience of the studio and the opinions that we wanna share as well… It is worth sharing that on a different platform.
The blog is still gonna keep going and it’s still going to have all of the information that it has on it right now. But I think it would be nice to do a few series of things that are very specific to piercing studio staff and not necessarily information that general clients particularly need or might want. Apart from that, we’re always looking to expand to more piercers. Maybe a new premises, maybe a new city, but that’s a long way in the future and very vague at the minute. We’re working with local jewellers to create custom lines. There’s all sorts in the works.
G: Any advice you want to give to apprentices/front of house/people that are just starting?
K: Number one thing, leave your ego at the door. Especially if you’ re new in the industry, you are gonna make mistakes, you are going to do bad piercings and you are going to embarrass yourself and you need to not have an ego about it. You need to be able to humbly ask people who know more than you questions and take their answers on board without getting shitty about it. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect; the relationship between confidence and competence. So when you know almost nothing, but you know a little bit, you are at the peak of mount stupid and that’s where you think you know everything and you are super confident about it.
Don’t run into this industry, all guns blazing. Be quiet, listen, and then open your mouth. Don’t open your mouth and then start arguing with people. It’s so important to never stop asking questions. Always question why you’re doing things because so much of what you do generally becomes part of a routine. And if you can’t think about why you’re doing things, you’re gonna struggle to improve later on. Learn from your mistakes and if someone points out your mistakes, don’t get defensive.
I also wish more people understood that front-of-house doesn’t just have to be a stepping stone to an apprenticeship. front of house is a career in itself. In America, front-of-house is a recognised, respected career and that is something that we need to definitely bring over here because a good front-of-house can be life or death for studios.
Shout out to David Angels for supporting my nonsense and making sure I was sane enough to present at UKAPP and giving me the confidence that I needed to nail it. And thank you to Aiden for allowing me to continue to exist in this horrifically weird industry in the sense that I do and for supporting me non-stop the whole way. You mean the world to me.
We often get the question – I bought this costume jewellery from a jewellers. It’s solid Gold, and it’s set with a genuine Diamond. Why can’t I wear it permanently in my helix? There are so many different styles of jewellery out there, and it can be hard to know what is and isn’t safe to wear. So what’s the difference between traditional jewellery and body jewellery?
Permanent Wear
The main difference between costume jewellery and body jewellery is that body jewellery is intended to be worn permanently without being removed. This alters the design of the jewellery, and means that the materials used in body jewellery must meet much higher standards than costume jewellery.
Costume jewellery is often (but not always) more affordable, and is made from materials that are not often intended to be worn in the moist organic environment of a piercing for extended periods of time.
Costume Jewellery – Note the thin wearable area, butterfly back, and low quality material.
Design
Body jewellery that is designed for permanent wear will often look quite different to costume jewellery. The main points are the thickness, available lengths, and smooth streamlined design. The design of costume jewellery is unsuited for permanent wear, which is why we do not recommend costume jewellery even if it is made from a high quality material such as 18k Gold!
Body jewellery is at minimum 18g or 1mm thick, although some piercing placements benefit from the added thickness of 16g (1.2mm) or 14g (1.6mm). The increased thickness of body jewellery means that any pressure put through the piercing is spread across a larger surface area, minimising the chance of irritation or damage.
Costume jewellery is often much thinner in gauge to save on material cost, often 0.8mm or 0.6mm thick. This thin gauge multiplies any force put through the piercing (for example when sleeping on the piercing, or during a snag or knock) and can cause a lot of irritation.
Body jewellery is designed to be worn permanently and as a result comes in a huge variety of different lengths. Imagine if shoes were one-size fit all – Most people would not comfortably fit the standard size! The same can be said for body piercings. Nobodies ears, noses, nipples or navels are the same and we shouldn’t expect one size of post to comfortably fit them all.
In comparison, costume jewellery often comes in a single size. They are often 6mm long, which is very short and can cause irritation when compressed into a piercing that doesn’t fit. Improperly fitted jewellery is the most common cause of issues we see!
Body jewellery has a smooth, streamlined design to allow for it to easily kept clean. Body jewellery is often a labret design, with a smooth flat back. This is incredibly comfortable to wear permanently, and does not collect skin, fluid and blood in the same way that a butterfly back does. Costume jewellery is not designed for fresh piercings or permanent wear in the same way, and can often have stamps or makers marks on the wearable portion that can scratch or irritate the inside of the piercing. Butterfly backs are also very unhygienic, and are very difficult if not impossible to keep clean. We always recommend wearing specially designed body jewellery in any piercings.
Body jewellery is designed to be worn permanently, and so is designed to have a smooth uniform wearable portion and comfortable flat back. It comes in a variety of lengths and thicknesses in order to fit your body perfectly.
Material
Body jewellery has to meet very strict safety protocols in order to be safe to wear permanently. Costume jewellery does not have to meet any standards, and so is often made from poor quality materials like sterling silver, 9ct Gold, stainless/surgical steel or acrylic. We have a full blog dedicated to body jewellery materials here, if you would like to read more into it! Low-quality costume jewellery can degrade in the body over time, releasing harmful chemicals and seriously irritating your piercing. Wearing costume jewellery is a sure way of causing damage to your piercings. Costume jewellery can be made from quality materials, sometimes solid 18k Gold, however the alloy of costume jewellery can contain nickel (a common allergen) and this can cause irritation.
Body jewellery must meet implant-grade standards set by the ASTM or via DFARs agreements in order to be safe to wear. Brands like BVLA, Anatometal, Inari, Neometal and Industrial Strength (and others!) all work with the highest quality implant-grade materials such as ASTM F-136 or ASTM F-1295 Titanium, ASTM F-138 Steel, pure Niobium or nickel-free solid 14k or 18k Gold. These materials do not degrade over time in the body like low-grade materials do. Ensure you are wearing materials that are implant-grade, or they may impact on the health of your piercings and yourself in general!
This piercing is a perfect example of what can happen when costume jewellery is worn in a piercing. Note the migration of angle, and collection of skin and fluid trapped in the design. This is not comfortable or safe!
This is the back of a helix piercing wearing well fitted, high quality body jewellery. The difference is obvious!
When To Wear Costume Jewellery
So when is it suitable to wear traditional jewellery? Obviously, costume jewellery can be a fun way to match your piercings to your outfit without spending hundreds on new items. They can be quirky, and a good way to test the water with a new colour scheme. We recommend wearing costume jewellery in healed piercings only. That means piercings that are 6+ months old, and are no longer sore, red, or easily irritated. We also recommend wearing costumed jewellery only in lobe piercings. The soft tissue of earlobes is a lot more forgiving of thin jewellery, and of butterfly backs. Finally, we recommend wearing costume jewellery for a maximum of 8 hours at a time. This means you must remove the jewellery and reinsert high quality jewellery to sleep in!
So there you have it, a good overview of why costume jewellery and body jewellery are NOT the same!
If you are wearing costume jewellery in any of your piercings, just get in touch or book a jewellery consultation, and we can work with you to upgrade your jewellery to comfortable, high-quality body jewellery. We can work with any budget – Safe jewellery does not have to break the bank!
High quality jewellery is integral to the overall, long-term health of your piercing. As much as we love to show the stunning end pieces of jewellery that we get to use at Rogue, the most important part of body jewellery is the quality of the labret post or barbell that you’re using. That’s the piece that goes into your body and it is paramount that your piercer considers the metal, the polish, the length, the gauge and so many other factors to ensure that your piercing is safe.
At Rogue, we use NeoMetal titanium labrets and barbells for all of our threadless body jewellery pieces. NeoMetal has been trading since the early days of body piercing, creating jewellery for Jim Ward at The Gauntlet back in the 1990s. In 1997 the patented threadless jewellery. Innovators from the very beginning, NeoMetal have partnered with both the Body Art Alliance and Association of Professional Piercers, to continue to expand their range of jewellery and make it more accessible for the worldwide industry.
Gemma: NeoMetal revolutionised modern body piercing, how do you keep up with changing needs and standards in the industry?
Lindsey: When we started producing threadless jewellery, it was in partnership with a family owned business that was already ISO compliant. It was already manufacturing medical and dental implant grade titanium pieces, so we’ve been ISO compliant from the beginning. Being the small manufacturer that we were in the early days, we spent a lot of time working really closely with the APP and influential piercers like Brian Skellie, and the the original customers to find out what they want and what the industry needed. And then for the 20 years after that, we had what we call a “good problem” of trying to keep up with the demand for the product. The industry kind of grew and changed around NeoMetal. We started offering different colour gems with different size, different posts and have worked with piercers to guide what new products are needed and what’s trending.
But of course, at the forefront is always the quality and safety. And when we talk about safety, we talk about it in terms of our employees who are working on the machines, the ones who are putting the jewellery together, manufacturing the jewellery. All of that is super important, as well as the safety of the piercers who work with the jewellery and the final wearers of the jewellery. Safety has always been at the forefront of everything we do. We stay ISO compliant and we’re now ISO 9001 certified. We have a team who manages the safety of the employees working with dangerous machines in the manufacturing warehouse, where even a small mistake can can mean someone gets really hurt. Everything we do is about doing it safely.
L: I’ve worked for NeoMetal for a little over a year and a half. I was in a very toxic and unhealthy work situation prior. And I just decided one day, I absolutely can’t do this anymore. So I applied for four jobs. One of them happened to be NeoMetal. I had always been interested in body modification, I got my first tattoo when I was too young to have a tattoo. But I always had jobs where I couldn’t have any modifications on display so I had to strategically place them on my body and keep things hidden
So I was naturally drawn to that alternative world. And it’s really been John Kittell from NeoMetal that’s taken me under his wing, almost like an apprentice. He has he has taught me so much about the jewellery and about how and why we do certain things and don’t do certain things. I’ve learned so much from him in just the short time I’ve been there and I’m so thankful for the time and knowledge that he’s spent and shared with me. It’s been truly amazing.
G: That’s awesome, it’s really important to work with people that you like working with.
L: I love working with people who are so passionate about the jewellery and about making sure it’s perfect. I was recently in California at the manufacturing facility and I got to see their quality control stations. It’s amazing seeing people look at these little, tiny pieces, looking for little imperfections or inconsistencies to make sure and it’s completely safe to use and wear. It’s amazing. They’re making sure there’s no imperfections to the jewellery, no matter how tiny they are, because the amount of bacteria that can be harboured in that tiny imperfection, it is significant.
G: You’ve recently released an 18ct gold range, is this the first time NeoMetal have produced gold?
L: We’ve had a 14 carat line for a while. But with the APP developing their overall standards and their standards for gold, we thought it was an important time to move to 18 carat. It’s in high demand right now. I only wear gold jewellery, I love gold jewellery, I just like how it looks. It’s really on trend right now. And so it’s important for us to stay relevant in that way.
We are definitely working on expanding our gold offering. It’s also really important for us to maintain the NeoMetal brand. There’s a lot of gold manufacturers on the market and they make amazing jewellery and we’re finding a balance of making amazing jewellery but that is still true to NeoMetal in design. We’ve also just launched the semi-precious stone range and that’s also part of our commitment to be bring more trend focused jewellery to the market and just expand what we have available.
G: I really love your new 14ct gold Halloween collection, what’s the process behind creating a body jewellery collection?
L: It’s a bit of a roundtable. We have new project initiatives and I’m involved from the sales side of the team, our marketing team is involved, John is of course involved. And then our operations team is involved because of course, we’ll get these grandiose ideas and then they’ll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can’t physically do that. So it’s really a group effort and to be perfectly honest, especially with like something like Halloween, it starts with John and a post-it and pencil sketch. It’s thinking of designs that people will like, but also designs that are still NeoMetal. Like the pumpkin spice latte end. We’re kind of like the dork of that industry and it’s embracing that, you know?
We rely a lot on what on what you guys tell us you need and that sometimes comes in the form of less eccentric ends but more necessary products. For example, the length extensions of our labret posts and offering them with different size backs. That aspect of it is equally as important. Is creating longer posts super fun? No, but it is perhaps even more important because it’s something that will be used all the time. It’s integral.
G: No point having a big elaborate end like the D20 without having the right post and base size to support the jewellery.
L: Yes, exactly. So for the fun, limited collections, a lot of those are just brainstorming sessions with all of us as a group and we all decide and then prototypes get made, we look at the prototypes and we say, “okay, this one looks better than this, this will fit better than this.” And we go through that process. We have Steve Joyner on our team and he lends a lot of real experience. He really brings the piercer voice to the table.
L: We’ve done charity work for Ukraine and the devastation there, and for Hurricane Ian and those impacted in Florida. The pride collection in particular was so important to us, and very important to many people on our team. Because of the history of the community in piercing, it was especially important for us that we did it, and we did it right. And that we picked a charity that we felt was honourable.
We made sure that our entire team felt comfortable with the charity that we picked, and that we all felt comfortable with the range that we were offering. We had a lot of meetings about that to make sure that we were as inclusive as possible. It was really a lot of collaboration, a lot of hard work from a lot of people on our team and it came out beautifully. It was a really, really special collection to work on.
G: Tell us about NeoMetal Europe, how’s that going?
L: It’s still very new , but the important thing is making our jewellery accessible. That’s one thing that was ingrained into me when I first started – It doesn’t matter how big the studio is, how many piercers they have, if this is their first time ever buying high quality jewellery – NeoMetal needs to be available to them. The first step is getting it available outside of the US in a way that is easy. Unfortunately, that’s not a big help to those of you in the UK just now.
The NeoMetal Europe Team!
G: Oh! No worries, that’s absolutely not your fault *cries in Brexit*
L: Getting into Europe and making jewellery accessible is step one. With smaller studios who want to use NeoMetal, when you start talking about things like international shipping and import fees, it really does make high quality jewellery, not easily accessible. We want to continue to grow and make our jewellery available to more people. I’m excited to see what impact it will have on the larger industry. This is just the start and I can’t wait to see how it grows. And the the guys we’re working with over there, Andre and Bruno and Simon and David are just amazing. They are all pillars of the piercing community and in their respective communities.
G: Have you seen any differences in the US, UK and Europe markets?
L: A lot of the trends are pretty consistent. Initial piercings in the EU tend to be more 16 gauge and in the US it’s almost always 18 gauge. Which is interesting. And the strange thing is, with nipple jewellery, it’s a bit of the reverse. The smaller gauge barbells and the smaller ends are used in in Europe where 14g is a lot more popular. Whereas here in the States, it’s 12 gauge.
Thank you so much to Lindsey for taking the time to chat with us. And thank you to the whole NeoMetal team for being staples in the modern body piercing world. We look forward to seeing what the future holds!
It’s officially been a whole year since I started my apprenticeship at Rogue and 6 months since I last wrote about it. So much has happened since then! Let’s begin at the end of my last blog detailing my time and catch up to where I am now!
Jay and Coral being adorable
Previously, I was just opening up my calendar one day a week to pierce independently! I’m now piercing 3 days a week, doing some cool lobes, pretty nostrils, fun helix/flat piercings and conchs! I’m starting to develop my own piercing style, talking to clients, the preparation process and actually decorating and placing pieces! Working with clients and being given creative control to make beautiful results is definitely becoming one of my favourite areas of work. My favourite projects at the moment are definitely stacked lobes! Whether that’s piercing them or choosing the jewellery for them, they definitely have my heart.
I’m also just starting to come into my ‘intermediate’ piercings! I’m just finishing my apprentice navel piercing and am slowly being introduced to bridges, scaffolds, and tongues! However, bridges have been super popular recently and I did 5 in one week! I’m also super happy with how they’ve been turning out!
“One time Jay punched me in the face. It was awesome” – Gemma Suter, 2022
Gemma, Kat, Breo and Jay
The UKAPP 2022 conference was this year also! That was super exciting and I had such a great time! There was so many amazing classes! I focused a lot more on history classes this year, including a history class by Nahuel Burgos on Piercing Before the 21st Century, and Paul King’s XXX classes and The Incredible Til of Cardiff! And I also got to do an incredibly informative class on Health Considerations by Suzanne Wise, which surprisingly taught me a lot more about myself and my own experience with piercings.
I got to meet so many people, from fellow apprentices to very experienced piercers who have been running the game for years, and it was super exciting to finally start talking to people! Rogue also explored Manchester a little bit and we ate out at some cool restaurants and cafes. Everything was honestly amazing! I also got to meet (and even get a selfie with) my piercing idol, Paul King! Apprentice of Elayne Angel at the Gauntlet, Paul King has been in the industry for many years and does masses of work regarding the history of piercing. He has taught at many conferences internationally. I even got a shiny new piece of jewellery while I was there! A stunning cluster curve for a new mid helix from Sebastienne Jewellery!
Aiden, Jay and Paul King
I’ve also done many things outside of the studio, such as camping to celebrate Anna’s birthday! And I braved a trip to Manchester by myself to go and see Harry Styles (which was my first big concert ever) and while I was there I also got my forehead pierced with a macrodermal by Kitty at Holier Than Thou, who did an excellent job! (And thankfully, it is still doing super well). I’ve also recently started reading again, which has been a pleasant surprise. It’s been a bit of a struggle over the years to indulge in a story like I once did, but here I am! Even sharing books out to people!
So much has happened in the past 6 months, and even the year as a whole, but I wouldn’t change it at all! I’m extremely looking forward to year 2 of my apprenticeship and another conference, and more shiny piercings. I’m turning 21 after Christmas, so another huge milestone is right around the corner. 2023 is definitely going to be another big year for me again. But I think for now, I’m just going to take it day by day and keep looking forward to what’s ahead.
With the gradual end of Summer and the slow transition into Autumn, I thought it would be a nice time to appreciate some of the gorgeous piercings that have left Rogues door over the last few weeks.
From piercer favourites to stunning pieces of jewellery, in this blog I have assembled together some of the awe-inspiring faces and ears that we have had the privilege to work with recently!
Breo has had a fantastic few weeks, from custom scaffolds and large gauge piercings, we’ve really seen him do some impressive work. There’s no doubt about it that Breo is a piercing wizard. Between his imagination and his fingers, he blows us away every single time.
Breo adorned some empty space on this lobe, using a Dusk 18K white gold quad bead to create a stacked effect and it is honestly just stunning.
Both a custom designed scaffold and a large gauge conch. It was absolutely wonderful to watch Breo start a long term project for this ear.
An epic set of paired vertical labrets, decorated with Inari Royal Blue Opals.
Using 4 Inari Black Opals, Breo delivered an amazing pair of surface eyebrow piercings.
Aiden, as always, has produced some gorgeous work. Coming from the technical side of the field, Aiden uses more of a mechanical mind to create such fascinating results, and his efforts have not gone amiss so far!
Working with unique anatomy can sometimes be quite tricky, but Aiden did a beautiful job of decorating this split lobe with a London Blue Neometal Prong to distract the eye.
Simple, yet elegant. This 18K Yellow Gold Ball from Rebecca Winder is the start of a long term project of reopening and repiercing some long retired piercings.
Large gauge work is Aiden’s bread and butter, and this 6mm initial labret was an honour to add to the collection.
Aiden did such a fantastic job of placing this striking Swiss Blue Topaz Baguette in this conch.
It’s been an incredible few months for Gemma, as she has been learning new techniques for existing piercings, but has also just took her first steps into learning intimate piercings! Alongside this, she has produced some eye-catching work!
We couldn’t be more mesmerised with this single lobe piercing! Embellished with an Industrial Strength Paw Print, how could you not fall in love?
How could I not put Jay’s ear in here? Gemma did such a perfect job with this mid-helix using a Sebastien Cluster!
A 14g vertical labret, crowned with a Neometal White Opal for a subtle, yet glam look.
These two separate helix piercings, are the start of a long term project! The end goal is to eventually downsize to snug labrets, and join the two with a chain, for the custom look of an industrial!
Jay has also had a smashing couple of months, from nailing their apprentice piercings, to styling and designing, we can honestly say they are producing beautiful work.
This graceful Hammered Teardrop was the perfect life-long piece of jewellery for this nose piercing!
Single lobes are a classic and tasteful piercing! This one here is pierced with a Neometal Clear Swarovski Prong!
Bridges are new piercings for Jay’s menu, but we are incredibly proud of how they are turning out!
Stacked lobes have been a favourite of Jay’s recently, both designing and piercing, and we couldn’t be happier with the finished look of this one!
And of course, we can’t do a September and October roundup without looking at some of the stunning work produced by our guest artist, Flavio. Flavio guested with us for a week and his work is absolutely fantastic!
A super sweet Neometal Trinity, perfectly laid in a conch!
Rebecca Winders 18k White gold disks are such a simple way to make any lobe look sophisticated!
This might be the first daith of the blog to make an appearance, but with the subtle class of an Ocean Grey Swarovski Bezel, how could this one go amiss?
It would be an absolute shame to not flaunt Kat’s new tragus piercing, with a stunning Anatometal Hera!
Based in Plymouth city centre, David owns Angeles Piercing inside Talisman Tattoo. David is one of very few people who left the piercing industry and returned full-throttle, opening up his own studio and becoming a board member of the UKAPP. David is both a UKAPP and APP member and is an incredibly talented piercer . An all round lovely person! Gemma got the chance to catch up with David post-conference to discuss his journey in the industry, UKAPP plans for the future and his sponsorship of Plymouth City Patriots Cheer Squad!
Gemma: What was your first experiencebody piercing?
David: I don’t remember the first piercing I saw. I remember seeing really heavily tattooed people when I was young. There was this guy that used to walk around Dawlish, I remember seeing him when I was really young and being both terrified and fascinated. I was just like, “Mom, look, it’s a bad man and I love him!”
David wears the Mini Olympus by BVLA in his septum
I think the first piercing I ever wanted was my eyebrow because it was the early two thousands and even though it was a super “chavvy” piercing at the time and everyone seemed to hate it , that made me want it. So I went and absolutely begged the woman in the local jewellers (which is a really grandiose term for what this was), it was like a little shack in Newton Abbott market where they sold and repaired watches, and for some reason they had a piercing gun. Thankfully, she did refuse to pierce my eyebrow with that and I got two lobe piercings instead. The school made me take the second one out the next day, and then I started stretching the first one. So that was like my first piercing,
I got my septum piercing pretty early on. I really wanted my lip pierced, that was like my big teenage dream because of MySpace, right? The second I finished secondary school, I ran straight to piercing shop and got my lip pierced. It was the best day.
G: While we’re in the early 2000’s, was there much of an alternative/punk scene where you grew up?
D: Yeah, there was actually. We had a really forward thinking studio called Exeter Body Piercing, which if anyone’s ever heard me talk before, they’ll know how much I love and miss that place. And because of the time, it was still non-sterile gloves and externally threaded jewellery. They were at least using titanium when everyone else was still using cheap, badly polished steel and mystery metal. They sold a lot of large gauge stuff and had all that late nineties, early two thousands crazy piercing photos on the wall. Like intersecting tunnels and stapling and all those practices that we know now very much don’t work, but was super cool to see at the time.
There was actually a reasonably vibrant piercing scene in Exeter, I don’t know about Plymouth because I’d never really spent that much time here as a kid. Exeter, at the time, was a surprisingly punk rock city as well. All the youth culture was divided into one of three groups. And one of those three groups was definitely gonna be the punk kids and the metal kids and they all had piercings, right? It had a reasonable body modification scene back then, for anyone that’s familiar with the UK Body Piercing/Modification scene back when it wasn’t illegal in the UK, Exeter had a fairly well known modification practitioner start their career down here.
D: I can never remember how I encountered BME. I assume it was just like in the back of a magazine or something like that. But I spent every waking moment on BME because, despite the fact there was this be really vibrant scene, I was of course absolutely convinced that I was the one that was gonna do it most extreme, you know, and all this crazy stuff I saw on BME, I was definitely gonna be doing. I’m quite glad I didn’t do that.
G: What year did you get started in piercing?
D: I didn’t start until I was 26. I really wanted to be a piercer but I didn’t really know how to get into it because Exeter Body Piercing had shut down.
Cheaper chain shops started springing up and they couldn’t compete. It wasn’t necessarily just price, it was location as well. Basically, Exeter has a really steep hill and people only walk down it if they absolutely have to because they know they’re gonna have to walk back up. The chain shops just set up further up the hill and no one wanted to walk down to EBP anymore.
So, I was managing a bar and looking for a new job when someone I knew who managed a local studio offered me the opportunity to work there. They’d had two piercers but one just left and the other was going on maternity leave. To be honest, I think they would’ve taken me on at that stage if I was literally on fire. So, they took me on and taught me to pierce, and I mean, it was a low standard shop. I was doing 60, 70 piercings a day by myself, a few minutes for each client, no idea what aseptic or reasonable quality jewellery was. It was titanium because licensing said it had to be. I think I worked there about nine months because I was, not trying to be all ‘holier than thou’ but I was already very well aware that standards were low.
I don’t care what anyone says, piercing is tiring and it’s a big responsibility and it takes a lot out of you to continually hurt someone all day, every day. 60-70 piercings a day. I just couldn’t hack it. I couldn’t do the type of piercing they needed me to do. So I quit and decided to go to university instead.
D: I just needed a project over lockdown and I’ve always really loved Ryan’s podcast, Piercing Wizard. Ryan’s podcast has had lots of British piercers on there, but I was also well aware that there were certain names that were just never gonna make it on that I wanted to talk to. When I started the podcast, I think the only person I had on who had been on Ryan’s podcast before was Charlie LeBeau, because, who doesn’t wanna talk to Charlie, right? I could have done at least another hour of that interview and never got bored. But other than that, I intentionally tried to pick people who haven’t had the opportunity to go on a podcast before.
G: Whatwas your experience guesting at Rogue like?
D: At my first guest spot and on my first day at Rogue as well, I tried to pierce like the shop I was working at rather than just understanding that, actually I’m here so I can pierce how I pierce. Aiden is so very committed to the idea that like you can be any style of piercer and Rogue will have the tools for you. Whereas that’s so different for me at my studio, I just have to make do because I don’t work somewhere that has the possibility of reprocessing. If I can’t make it work with my fingers or a blank, I just can’t make it work, you know? So I think that was the big difference. It was quite nice every now and again to be like, “Ah, that’s really difficult. Wait! I can use haemostats!”. And the Rogue jewellery selection as well makes mine look really small. I’ve never seen that much BVLA before in one place, so yeah, that was exciting.
D: I knew nothing about sports before I got into basketball. We are very much not a sports oriented family. I tried to be into football for a while, just trying to make some friends. Didn’t really work I’m not gonna lie. I’m not very good at faking enthusiasm for football. I’ve done a couple of combat sports, which I quite enjoy, but I can’t do that anymore because if I hurt my hand, I just can’t work. So we’ve never really been a sports oriented family.
But one day my son came home from school and said he wanted to go see some basketball. And we said, alright that sounds horrible but we’ll take you. And we really enjoyed it! Me and me and my wife got right into it. And their cheer squad have really struggled to find sponsorship, which I find baffling because none of the players or the team have had that problem. From a brand psychology point of view, players have good days, but they also have really bad days. But the cheer squad? Only good feelings! So that was like a no brainer to me. We are sponsoring Plymouth City Patriots Cheer Squad this year, which is cool.
G: Tell us about the journey to starting Angeles Piercing
D: I work out of Talisman Tattoo in Plymouth, I rent a room downstairs and my studio is pretty self-contained.
When I left the first studio I worked at, I really did truly intend not to go back to piercing. I thought that place was all there was, and I didn’t wanna find out anything else about the industry. But then a friend of mine who ran a studio, asked if I wanted to work there. I didn’t know if I really wanted to do piercing again but I just agreed to do it for a few months until they found a new piercer. In that time, I had a client come in wanting a set of Dahlia piercings. I’d never done them before and from everything I knew about piercing – it didn’t seem very safe to just ‘give it a go’.
So I reached out to Nick Pinch and asked if he’d show me how to do these piercing if I brought the client along and he agreed. The guy didn’t have the right anatomy for them, but instead, he ended up buying an Industrial Strength prium and a big amethyst cabochon. And I was blown away. I’d never seen jewellery like that before. Pinchy showed me his Statim and stuff like that and I was like, “Oh my god, these things are all incredible.” So a combination of speaking with Rae from Ethereal Aesthetics, Ian from Holdfast Body and Pinchy convinced me to go to the UKAPP conference that year. And I came back from with all these incredible ideas and properly got fired from the studio I was at.
So I went home and I was really, really broken and full credit to my wife because I don’t know that I’d still be piercing now if it wasn’t for her. She was like “look, if you want to carry on piercing then you’ve got basically everything you need except the Statim. So let’s find the money for the Statim and you can have some feelings about this horrible thing later, but right now let’s just find you another job”. We went into Plymouth city centre and I got offers from a couple of studios that I wasn’t really sure about.
Steph and David at their wedding
And then I walked into Talisman. I knew I needed to work there. The aesthetic was just so pretty and it was just such a peaceful space. The studio owners asked me to come in for a chat and I’d already had such a good feeling about it that I’d actually turned down the other two offers. I was so prepared to work at Talisman . I thought I was being interviewed so I wore a fucking suit to meet them. Took a whole bag of like jewellery with me that I’d picked up from conference that I wanted to show them. And they were just lovely. I told them that I wanted to be a UKAPP member and an APP member and they asked what I needed to do that. Looking at the space, it just needed a sink and the ability to make the desk non-porous. The studio owners were really supportive in helping me achieve that.
I started in Talisman in November, 2019. And without blowing my own trumpet, I have the highest Environmental Health score. I was elected to the UKAPP board within about nine months of being part of the organisation. I think obviously Covid had a lot to with that because, I often get quite a lot of congratulations for all the stuff I tried to do during covid. And actually I was purely doing it because I knew that if I didn’t, I was gonna get so depressed I might never leave the sofa again.
When the pandemic started, Aiden had said everyone needs to do something. And I was like, right, I’m gonna do something. I’m gonna do something and I’m gonna do it right now. Because otherwise I’m gonna cry and I’m gonna never stop crying. So we did few online things for piercers over Covid. And then when the next board election came up, I got nominated and I thought, I’ll accept the nomination because no one’s gonna vote for me anyway. And then I got like elected and I was like, okay now I’ve gotta be on the board
It’s been quite cool. I think we’ve done some cool stuff.
G: Why did you want to join the UKAPP?
D: I discovered the UKAPP around about the same time I met Nick. Me and Rae were very much baby pierces at that point and were constantly talking about where we wanted our careers to go. We both wanted to be UKAPP and APP members. To be honest, it was kind of mostly self-interested. It seemed like there was this group of piercers who had really demonstrated that they were hitting these standards. I just wanted to be a part of that, I wanted to show that I was as good as it was possible to be at what I did.
Especially after Lola and Sean had all the success that they did over the FGM issue, I think I definitely started seeing that this is an organisation which doesn’t just prompt piercers to be better, but also wanted what was happening to us to be better as well. And actually. maybe we could make some change. I put together my UKAPP application in July 2019 and after a few minor changes it was accepted in December, 2019. I was out Christmas shopping when I got the email, I was in a comic book shop buying Spiderman comics for my son and I did a little happy dance. It was really good.
The UKAPP is group of piercers who are meeting a certain hygiene standard and I know it’s a cliche but I am proud to be a part of the organisation and I’m proud that I’ve managed to consistently hit that standard.
UKAPP members at conference, 2022
G: Congrats on your position on the board! What are the UKAPP currently working on?
D: We’re going to be updating minimum standards. They had, in my mind, become just a little bit convoluted and reading the current standards was a bit difficult. So we want to update them, make them make a little bit more sense and easier to understand. We’ve added and clarified a few as well.
In 2023, we are adding sterile gloves as a strong suggestion. We are adding aseptic technique as a strong suggestion. In 2024, that will become an actual minimum standard and if you don’t want to use sterile gloves, you just have to let us know how you’re going to achieve an aseptic technique without the use of sterile gloves.
We will be updating jewellery standards to apply to non-healed piercings, which they already did but I think there was some confusion around that. You have to use something that meets the minimum jewellery standards for your initial piercing, but do you have to use it for downsized? Do you have to use it for troubleshooting? We are just clarifying that yes, unless it is a properly healed piercing, you need to be using jewellery that meets the minimum standard. And although this is not becoming a minimum standard, it is purely becoming a suggestion same as the use of a HEPA filter, in the sense that we think it’s a good and sensible idea, but we also recognise that it’s not possible for every studio. We’re going to suggest that jewellery transfer tools or anything that actually transverses a wound as you’re performing a piercing, should be single use and should not be reprocessed.
We’re also launching a journal! There was a lot of feedback that people weren’t being kept, up to date. The journal is our response to that, and if anyone has ever read The Point which is put out by the APP, it’s gonna be something similar to that.
We’re also going to take a run at creating a healed piercing standard because it’s obviously been something that nearly every UKAPP and APP board have tried and just never been successful. So we kind of feel like, it’s our turn. I feel like we all know what we mean when we talk about jewellery that’s suitable for healed piercing. We are not talking about sticking an externally threaded piece of steel or piece of non verified metal into someone’s healed piercing. That’s not what we mean. We are just trying to find a way that we can say it should meet these standards unless it’s for weights or plugs or something like that. But we just need to find a way to word that that actually works for the industry as a whole. I’m quietly confident in that one.
We’re also just continuing to work with Environmental Health Officers. I know it looks slow to an outside observer, and I absolutely understand why it looks slow. The thing is, when you talk about making change to the UK piercing industry, there is no central legislation which governs piercing at all. It’s all local and the reason that’s a problem is it means that you can’t make changes all at once. They have to make changes council by council and in fact, to be able to make centralised changes, you wouldn’t just have to have representatives of the body piercing industry, you would have to start arguing that many powers that have been devolved from Westminster to local government are then taken back to Westminster.
So it’s not just piercing, but also tattoo, hair, food hygiene, things like this. When you’re making change at a local council level, first off, you have to convincingly make the argument that the change you’re asking for is essential to public health. After you convince them of that, they then have to check whether it’s going to place “an undue burden on local business”. You then have to win that argument with one council, which is an enormous undertaking in itself. There are 333 councils in the UK and if one of them turns you back, then that suddenly sets a precedent that other local councils can knock it back as well.
I appreciate why it looks slow to people on the outside and it’s because it is. It is heartbreakingly, painfully slow to make the changes that we want to make for the UK piercing industry.
We did have a few things last year that have given us some hope, and I’m hoping that we can expand on this year. We might be able to approach things in a slightly different way without having to make new legislative change, but work within what already exists without introducing bylaws. So if that comes off, I’ll be thrilled.
G: What’s in the future for Angeles Piercing?
D: For the time being, I’m very happy coasting. I’ve got all the UKAPP board stuff and I’ve just started working with Infinite Body Jewellery to bring their jewellery to the UK. I’m not gonna lie, my wife Steph has done an enormous amount of the Infinite stuff because it’s her company to. But even so, I am still snowed under and the idea of expanding or doing anything big with the studio at the minute is a little way off.
I’ve reached a point in my jewellery collection where actually it’s not really fitting in the cabinet anymore. It’s looking a bit crowded. But I don’t have the space to add a second cabinet right now. Sometime in the future I think I would like to start my own studio. I would probably continue to work in Talisman and I would start a second studio maybe elsewhere. There’s no firm plans really, at the minute we’ve got a lot else on.
I do offer free consultancy services at this stage in my career, to help piercers get out of studios that they’re not happy in and set up on their own. And it’s something that I’d like to do as a job eventually, but I wouldn’t know how that would work in a way that I could like effectively make money from the people I want to make money from, but not take money from people who I think need the help. Rhianna’s UKAPP role as membership liaison is very much like, I would struggle to consider it anything other than free consultancy. Because Rhianna is really, genuinely terrific at their role in helping people become members. People don’t necessarily know that they can just reach out to Rhianna in an email and we’ll discuss anything. Does this meet standard? Does that not meet standard? And personally, I really like creative ways to meet UKAPP standards. I’m not saying that we’re gonna like bend rules, but I do like seeing people find creative ways to deal with problems that might arise.
For example, Rae at Ethereal Aesthetics, the way that they have set up their studio to ensure that it’s meeting those minimum standards or the minimum standards that they’ve set for them for themselves based on UK standards, it’s incredible. Like, it’s really incredible. When I first saw that building, I though there is no way that is ever gonna be where it is now. But they’ve done it!
It shows you don’t have to be like those huge studios that have the opportunity to just tear walls up and down at whim to be able to be members. My own studio is much the same, I’ve got maybe 20 square meters of floor space. It’s just tiny. But when I set up Angeles Piercing, one of my goals of becoming a UKAPP member was that I wanted to show that you didn’t need to be a really high volume studio to meet those standards. I think I’ve demonstrated that well.
G: Katasks – if you could change one thing about your studio design, what would it be?
D: A better jewellery display space because I’ve literally got one jewellery cabinet in quite possibly the most inconvenient location ever. It’s the only place I could put it that met standard and I hate it because it’s in quite a closed away location. So yeah, a better jewellery display space would be what I would change about my studio.
G: Jay wants to know – What is your Gregg’s order?
D: Oh, it’s two vegan sausage rolls and a bottle of Coke. Nice and simple. Have you been to Original Pasty House? It might just be a Devon thing. Their vegan sausage rolls are absolutely boss, like definitely the best ones on the market.
Although not super common, surface piercings are a really really fun addition for the dedicated piercing enthusiast. So, what is a surface piercing? What kind of jewellery do they use? Where can I have one? Surface piercings definitely garner a lot of attention, and plenty of questions! Here we will endevour to give a solid overview of the concept, and give you enough information to make an informed decision on wether a surface piercing is right for you.
What Is A Surface Piercing?
Surface piercings are a class of piercing that includes both surface barbells and microdermals. The defining characteristic of a surface piercing is that it sits inside the skin, and does not exit the back of the tissue like a traditional piercing does. It is held in place either by a baseplate (microdermals) or a long flattened barbell (surface bar) that the skin and underlying tissue heals into.
A classic placement is the cheekbone microdermal. This one has healed a treat!
Placement
Surface work is not limited in placement like ears, noses and navels! You can be much more creative with the placements and have a lot more free reign. That being said, there are some very important rules when it comes to surface work placement.
Low Movement
In order to be successful, a surface piercing must not undergo high amounts of movement. The constant rocking motions, folding and bending that come with certain placements means that your surface piercing is more likely to reject in a shorter amount of time. Areas of high movement include the eyebrows, forehead, wrists, cheeks, chest (especially on larger chested folks!) and stomach. This does not mean that the surface piercing is a definite no-go – It is important to have your desired placement assessed by a skilled piercer. For example, our apprentice Jay has a very successful forehead microdermal. This is not a placement that I would be able to get as my forehead is much too expressive and mobile! There is generally a placement that works for everyone, you just need to be particular and informed before choosing it.
Safe!
The absolute priority of any surface work is safety. Every piercer should have your health as their number one goal! This means there are certain placements that are absolutely not recommended. These include the neck, inner wrists, legs, hands, feet etc. If you are thinking of an unusual placement that you have never seen before, think critically about it. There is usually a reason…
Lifestyle
And finally, you need to take into account your lifestyle. Even if you are anatomically suited to a particular surface piercing placement, that does not mean your lifestyle will allow for it! Think about your usual daily routine – Your clothing choices, your accessories, the positions you usually spend your day in. For example, if you are thinking about chest surface piercings but spend your days behind the wheel of a car, then maybe you will need to alter the placement as seatbelts are not your friend! Or consider the ever-popular lower back microdermals. They look awesome, but if you wear jeans, belts, or spend the majority of your day sitting down, then they may not be for you. Unless you are willing to significantly alter the way you live your life in order to support a surface piercing, you’ll need to think carefully!
Appropriate Jewellery
The main issue we see with surface piercings is the use of improper jewellery. There are many styles of jewellery, only two of which are suitable for surface work. To understand this, you need to understand the basic concept of piercing healing: A piercing will only heal correctly if the jewellery enters and exits the body at a perpendicular angle to the tissue. A piercing that exits at 90 degrees to the skin will minimise pressure points, and allows the tissue to heal appropriately around the jewellery. That means that a surface bar or microdermal must exit the skin perfectly straight!
As you can see from this diagram the use of straight, curved, flexible (bioplast) and 45 degree surface barbells should be absolutely avoided! Ask your piercer what they use, and make an informed decison on wether your piercer is educated on surface work and able to perform a long-lasting, sustainable piercing for you. Here at Rogue we exclusively use ASTM F-136 Titanium microdermal plates and surface bars from Anatometal – The highest quality jewellery on the market. In addition to this, our head piercers have a combined experience of over 30 years! Our aim is to provide the highest quality service to give you the best possible result.
Aftercare
Aftercare for surface piercings varies greatly from standard aftercare. The main thing to note is that until the surface piercing is fully healed, it is incredibly fragile! The aim is to keep the area relatively clean whilst minimising tugging, pushing, pulling and lifting motions. We recommend cleaning the piercing once or twice a day, choosing either a sterile saline compress or a hot shower. For example, if you shower in the evenings then you will only need to actively clean the piercing using a sterile saline in the mornings!
Sterile Saline is the only thing we recommend using on your piercings. To clean your surface piercing, spray a small amount of saline onto the piercing and let the moisture soak in and soften any crusties you have underneath the top. Take a clean piece of nonwoven gauze or paper towel, and gently use it in a flossing motion underneath the top to remove any crusties. If the crusties don’t want to come away after a few seconds, do not be tempted to get rough with it! Let the crusties be. Once you have finished gently cleaning, dab the area completely dry using a dry piece of nonwoven gauze or paper towel.
In the shower, it is a simple enough process. Simply allow warm water to run over and underneath your surface piercing to gently wash away any buildup. Again, be super gentle when drying the piercing!
We recommend covering the surface piercing overnight for the first 4 weeks using a disposable plaster. This is to hold the jewellery in place while it heals, as it is quite unstable until the 4 week mark where the skin starts to repair itself. Ensure the jewellery is not touching the sticky part of the plaster! This can cause unnecessary damage to the piercing when you go to remove it.
Surface Piercing Maintenance
Surface piercings do require maintenance in order to look good and stay healthy throughout their lifespan. The main thing to keep in mind is that the piercing generally needs to be actively cleaned through it’s life as skin cells can build up underneat the jewellery top and are tricky to remove! To keep the piercing squeaky clean, the best thing to use is a dental floss pick. After you have a shower, simply take the pick, tuck the floss underneath the surface piercing top, and use it to carefully extract any buildup. As you live with your surface piercing, you will start to get familiar with how often you may need to do this. Some may need cleaning like this every few days, and some may require this more active cleaning only once a month. The most important thing to keep in mind is the less you have to manipulate or move the surface piercing, the more likely it is to last a long time!
An awesome microdermal piercing on our apprentice Jay using an Anatometal 14g threaded Gold Heart!
Surface Piercing Jewellery Options
Aside from the appropriate jewellery style, there is so much you can do with a surface piercing. The main thing to know is that surface work is always 14g/12g threaded. No threadless options here! That is due to the ever-present motion and tugging that your skin experiences that would not be easily combated by a threadless pin. So. What do you want to wear? There are so many options!
Omni or Unidirectional?
You have two choices in the initial design of your microdermal top. Do you want it to be omnidirectional – Symmetrical in all planes like a disk, dome, or circular design? Or do you want it to be unidirectional – Moons, stars, hearts, and a huge amount of other designs are unidirectional. The main difference is that unidirectional pieces much be pierced with initially, or have the threading checked to ensure that when threaded onto the post that they sit in the desired orientation. For example, if Jay wanted to swap her Anatometal Heart for another design, theres nothing to say that when she puts another asymmetrical piece on top that it won’t thread in upside down! We generally recommend circular or symmetrical pieces if you are looking to upgrade an existing microdermal to avoid this issue.
You can view all of the jewellery appropriate for microdermals here! We also love to custom order jewellery for surface work – Simply email kat@roguepiercing.co.uk to start the process. This way you can guarantee your absolute perfect piece – Choose from a range of thousands of designs!
September has been a very busy month. The Rogues were very privileged to attend conferences in both Essen, Germany and Manchester, UK! Veteran conference attendees Aiden and Breo flew out to the annual BMXNet conference held in Essen to learn more about the fascinating world of body modifications, including suspension demonstrations and piercing technique workshops.
Almost as soon as they arrived back, the whole team drove to Manchester for the UKAPP conference. First time attendees, Jay, Kat and Gemma finished the Saturday shift and headed out – notebooks at the ready! A hectic month requires plenty of time to reflect, absorb and process and with so much learnt and so many new experiences shared, the team have taken a moment to jot down some thoughts about September’s conference season.
Jay
My first time away for a UKAPP conference was absolutely crazy, but in the best way imaginable! When we first arrived on Saturday night, I was super nervous and tired from a busy day at the studio, followed immediately by the 2.5 hour drive to Manchester. So I called it a night early and was tucked up in bed by 11pm (after a quick trip to Spar for some snacks)!
And then, it was Sunday morning! We got up, took Aiden’s dogs for a walk and headed to the venue for registration. I kicked off my first day with an amazing class by Edu Fernandez about the dark side of diamonds! I went off to Greggs, and this is where I started talking to people and making some friends. It really helped my confidence, and from there I introduced myself to as many people as possible! The afternoon was kickstarted with another amazing class from Suzanne Wise, educating us all about health considerations with piercings – I got so many notes! This was followed by THE Paul King, talking to us about the history of pierced women in porn. This was a huge fan girl moment for me and I stayed behind afterwards to ask some questions! I nearly died when he shook my hand!
Aiden, Jay and Paul King
I couldn’t have asked for a better first start to the conference, which then got even better in the evening! After a lovely meal (thank you Aiden :)) we headed towards the Stiletto after party, where I got to talk to a few more piercers! And, HUGE FANGIRL MOMENT, I got to take a photo with AIDEN AND PAUL KING, on stage!! I was weak at the knees! Day two, the excitement had definitely cooled down a little bit, however I got to do some more amazing classes! Huge thank you to Nahuel Burgos, Paul King, and Jess Sellars for their very informative classes.
And then before I knew it, it was already the final day! Started it off right with a trip to Starbucks and a great introduction to high-end jewellery class from Alex Wilkins! The afternoon was swiftly followed by a super educational class by the wonderful Helen Houghton, all about those lumps and bumps! And then we ended the day with another history lesson by Paul King, all about The Incredible Til of Cardiff! Afterwards, I got to talk a little more to him regarding how to start my own research projects and even got to give him some stickers! And that was it! My highlights were definitely meeting Paul King, and making some incredible new piercer friends, as well as collecting loads of stickers! Huge shoutout to Lindsey at Neometal, and Damien at Neilmed! And the guys from People’s Jewelry! You were all so amazing, and lovely! I really wish I’d had more time to properly speak to everyone, but that’s what next year is for right?
Breo
It was my third time attending the BMXnet conference, my last one was back in 2016. There are a lot of friends that I only can see when meet up at this conference, so it was awesome to catch up with them after many years. It’s a huge event (this year we were around 470 participants).
The classes are more participative than other conferences, which is nice and the venue is just spectacular. We had free buffet (eat as much as you like), with plenty of vegan options. Classes start from 9am up to 8pm (around 2 hours each class), and with breaks in between so you can attend as many as you want. People come from all over the world to this annual gathering (we had a piercer that came all the way from Mumbai!). We met a lot of new faces indeed.
BMXNET 2022
Jewellery vendors were distributed over 2 floors (the building has 6 floors), because there was A LOT OF JEWELLERY BRANDS selling! We got a few treats for ourselves, loved ones and friends. I only have good memories from this conference, it’s one of my favourites by far.
Now onto UKAPP, what to say… playing at home is always awesome. This year was very special to me, because not only did I have my partner in crime assisting as a vendor (Claudia of Inari) but the whole Rogue team was there. It was the first time for Gemma, Jay and Kat (just the first of many to come), with a special mention to Kat, who attended as speaker. Words cannot tell how proud I was seeing them talking about wound healing dynamics. Thorough and technical, just the way we like it.
Claudia & Breo at UKAPP
Conference was at the Radisson Hotel, which is located in central Manchester. It’s smaller than BMXNet, but cosier. It was incredibly awesome seeing how the conference grew through the years, despite a global pandemic. There is nothing bad to say about the UKAPP Conference, maybe that it is just 3 days long. 3 days that, if you blink, you definitely will miss something! Usually there is so much going on at the same time at conferences, that it is hard to do everything you planned, but the UKAPP Conference is one of those that is structured in a way that all the classes don’t overlap with other activities on the schedule, which is great.
Gemma
Like many people, I’ve struggled with social anxiety for over a decade and attending my first large conference was a really big achievement both professionally and personally. I cannot thank everyone enough for being so supportive and understanding. It’s been years since I’ve visited Manchester and it was great to return to the city (under wildly different circumstances).
Filling our tummies!
Every class I attended was eye opening. From learning how to better identify the causes and preventions for piercing lumps and bumps thanks to Helen, seeing different techniques and approaches to nostril piercings from Stray, all the way through the three history classes presented by Paul King – every class I attended was full of fascinating information and helpful knowledge that I can’t wait to bring to my piercing. I particularly enjoyed Nahuel’s class on piercing before the 20th century and can’t wait to do some further reading on our worldwide history!
I met so many amazing people, from all over the world and it was great to hear their stories, opinions and accents. I’ve missed the North! It was overwhelming at first to meet so many industry professionals that I have admired, some from even before I picked up a needle. Everyone who took the time to chat with me was so lovely and I’m very grateful to work in an industry with such interesting people. I really loved spending time with Andre (@andrenalinbodyart) and Loreia (@unknownpleasurespiercing) and I can’t wait to see you both again soon (BMXNET 2023?).
This year was my first year attending the UKAPP conference. Although we were members last year, I was unable to attend due to covid restrictions so it was super exciting to be able to go this year! Although I was pretty nervous, I was also incredibly thrilled to be teaching a class this year. My class was ‘Immunology and Wound Healing Dynamics,’ which went down very well! The class actually topped out in attendance so I hope to be able to offer it again next year so that more people can attend that want to learn about science and piercing.
Kat’s class was jam packed!
Aside from being a speaker, I also had the pleasure of being the chief purchaser of jewellery from the extensive jewellery expo! We have new stock from Dusk Body Jewellery, Sebastienne Jewellery, Industrial Strengthand Anatometal which is all available in store and on the webstore as well. I really hope you all like what I’ve chosen! The classes were also awesome this year. I made a point to attend as many as my schedule would allow, so I attended classes covering Professional Boundaries (David Angeles), Jewellery Handling and Manipulation (Stray and Aiden Johnson), Better Basics (Stray Johnson and David Angeles), Initial Jewellery Standards (Brian Skellie), Ethical Gold (Edu Fernandez), and a history of the Incredible Till of Cardiff (Paul King).
Each class was incredibly valuable in their own right – I couldn’t pick a favourite! It was insightful to meet some of the names I had until now only seen and talked to over the internet. Brian Skellie was just as calm, well-spoken and intelligent as he is online! It was also very cool to meet some fellow members of the industry and get talking. Thank you to everyone who came up and said hi! My favourite moment was definitely the Themed Ball, where David Angeles attended dressed as a mermaid – David Clam-geles. I am very proud of that pun, just so you know!
Conference season came and went in a blur this year. Breo and myself headed to BMXNet first, where we got to spend time with some old friends as well as make some new friends. We took classes and waxed lyrical into the night with our European and international peers and it felt like returning home after all the lockdowns. Before we knew it we were making our way back to the UK for a quick intermission.
Our boys at breakfast!
I did my CBT and motorbike theory tests (passed both!) and then it was time to pack the car and head to UKAPP. I couldn’t be more proud of how the Rogues handled themselves this year. Breo and myself are veteran conference attendees but the rest of the team were first timers. I was the AV volunteer for UKAPP conference again this year so I was generally busy setting up classes and making the tech work but every time I saw a Rogue, they were asking questions and introducing themselves to people as well as asking for interviews (well done Gemma!). Seeing Jay become a fan girl and go up on stage to get a photo with Paul King is one of my top two highlights of UKAPP. The other would be seeing Kat teach their first class and blow the minds of piercers. I was nervous taking such a large team but they all did perfectly and I look forward to them all returning next year!
Thank you!
To all the volunteers, vendors, board members and attendees at both BMXnet and UKAPP conference this year for making it a great experience for everyone. And thank you to our clients and industry peers, as without all of your support we wouldn’t have the opportunity to travel, learn and continue providing high quality and high standard professional piercing in the heart of Nottinghamshire. It means the absolute world to us to be able to continue to be at the forefront of safe piercing practices in the UK and across the world. See you all again next year!
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