Well, it’s currently Friday the 9th of April and we reopen in 4 days on the 13th. I think it’s fair to say that it’s been a long wait and a very long time in the making. Being closed for another three months means that we have been forcibly closed for a total of about 36 weeks since March last year. It has been touch and go at times but we are proud to have made it out the other side of yet another National Lockdown. Hopefully this is the last long lockdown we have to endure, and we look forward to flourishing in Nottingham in the coming months and years!
Today we’re talking about what the COVID-19 policies will look like in our studio when we reopen. For a short summary, look on our instagram. We have reopened our booking portal, so click here to book your appointment! We remain an appointment-only studio, so do book to avoid disappointment as we do not take walk ins.
Before Your Appointment
We send out all the consent forms and relevant details to you within your confirmation email. It’s super important you fill these out before you arrive for your piercing, as it takes up valuable time in your appointment which can be used for much more fun things like picking out Gold jewellery! Not only that, but we do need to be precise with our appointment timings in order to avoid overlap with previous or newly arriving clients. Please fill in all documentation before your appointment slot!
As always, we recommend you eat a good meal and drink plenty of water within 4 hours of your appointment. We find it makes the whole process much easier when you are calm, well-fed and alert! This also makes the risk of feeling a bit woozy much smaller, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.
When we reopen, we will not be performing any under-the-mask services. This includes piercings, checkups, jewellery changes and troubleshooting. This is for the safety of our staff and other clients. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, and we feel it is reckless and irresponsible to be offering these types of oral and facial piercings during the pandemic. We will be closely monitoring the Government guidelines and local infection rates during the coming months, and will make a science and law-driven decision on this policy in the future. We do not currently have a provisional date for the reopening of under-the-mask services.
When You Arrive
We ask that you arrive a maximum of 5 minutes before your appointment. Normally we don’t mind if you arrive early (and bring snacks for us!) but at the moment we cannot have a waiting area and that means you will be turned away until your appointment time. We firmly stick to a one in, one out policy as it greatly reduces the risk of viral cross-contamination and gives us time to fully decontaminate all surfaces, door handles, anything that might have been touched by the previous client.
We also politely ask that unless you are a parent bringing a minor into the studio for their first piercings, or a client arriving for an intimate piercing or intimate piercing consultation, you must arrive alone for any piercing appointment. We do not currently allow groups or friends into the studio unless they are there to chaperone your intimate appointment. If you arrive with a friend or partner, they must wait outside the studio for the duration of your appointment. Please take this into consideration if you have booked 40 minutes of appointments and it is cold outside! If you arrive in a group, all with appointments back-to-back, then we will only allow one client in at a time to select jewellery and get pierced. This is regardless of social bubbles or family groups, this is simply to allow us to be able to socially distance from our clients within the studio and is entirely for the health and well-being of our staff.
As in previous opening periods, we will have our NHS Test and Trace QR code on the door and you must scan this before setting foot in the studio. This means you will need to download the Test and Trace app in advance of your appointment if you have not already. If you refuse to scan this, we also have a manual register on our tablet which you can fill out.
The wearing of a medical mask is compulsory for the entire duration of your time at Rogue. This means you must not remove your mask for any reason. If you feel breathless or need a minute, we are more than happy to guide you outside where you can have a breather. If you refuse to wear a mask in Rogue, you will be asked to leave. If you have a genuine medical exemption, then please get in touch with us before your appointment and we will see if we can make reasonable alterations to our service. Our general advice in this instance would be, if you are mask exempt, to wait for a time where masks are no longer mandatory before booking for a piercing. Along the same vein, if you are medically exempt, this does not mean we will perform facial piercings on you. The same rules apply to everyone that we will not be performing any oral or nasal piercings on any clients until the laws on close-contact services are updated in the future.
So there you have it, an introduction to the current policies at Rogue. It sounds like a lot, and it is! We are closely following current Government guidelines, and there is even more regulation that is recommended by the Association of Professional Piercers that we also follow which is more piercer-focussed and behind the scenes. You can put your trust in us as we are going above and beyond to make your visits to Rogue a safe and educational experience.
