#nickel allergies

[artykyn]

When will you share that rant about Claire's and piercings? I am very invested

The Long Version

The Short(...er) Version:

Disclaimer: Most of my gripes apply to pretty much any shopping-mall piercing kiosk. Claire’s is not the ONLY place I have an issue with, they’re just the best known.

1. There are two main piercing methods: a hollow needle, or a piercing gun. Piercing guns are objectively in every way worse than a needle. But Claire’s, which uses the gun, markets it as “No Contact! 😃” and “Needle Free! 🥰” while failing to mention that also means it is a “Higher Infection Risk! 😉” and “More painful! 😇”

2. It’s okay to use cheap low-grade jewelry in a piercing that is already healed. But using low-grade metal in a fresh piercing increases your risk of healing and health problems (and can even put you at risk of developing metal allergies that will last the rest of your life!). Claire’s sells both cheap and high-grade metal, but fails to properly counsel customers on what metals are appropriate for a first piercing, and ultimately lets you pick whatever you’re willing to pay for. 

3. Claire’s employees are not professional piercers. They are retail workers with basic piercing training. Trusting them to give you good piercing advice and sell you appropriate products is like trusting a pet supply store cashier to give you good animal care advice and appropriate products. There are always better people to go to, and they might be more expensive, but ultimately, you are getting exactly what you pay for. Make your own choices, at your own risk.

4. General gripe about piercing culture: there are mothers out there who are so obsessed with enforcing gender roles that they will get their infant baby girl’s ears pierced. Piercings are a type of body modification and you should not be forcing that upon someone without their consent. Let your kid grow up and choose to have a piercing. It’s exciting to go out and get pierced! Why rob your child of that fun experience?

Piercings also are an open wound which needs special care, which babies do not comprehend, leaving them at high risk of accidental infection and even permanent scarring and disfiguration in some cases. A lot of professional piercers have age restrictions for this very reason. But Claire’s (among others, whom I take issue with) will gladly pierce your infant’s ears.

Having metal allergies is relatively common. Interestingly, the percentage of the population with metal allergies is noticeably skewed towards women. Gee.... perhaps it might be related to so many women getting cheap piercings in order to fulfill gender expectations.

[bigskyandthecoldgun]

steddie angst where eddie thinks steve won’t hold his hand bc he doesn’t take their relationship seriously, but steve just has a really bad nickel allergy and he just knows eddie’s costume jewelry ass rings would make his hands itchy

[beetlejuicesgraveyardrevue]

how come you can't eat chocolate :( ?

I developed a severe nickel allergy at 18 :( eating foods high in nickel makes my skin crack and break and then break out in hundreds of tiny little blisters on my hands and face, in super severe instances it can also have an anaphylactic effect but luckily that’s only happened to me twice. I have to be super careful about the amount of nickel I consume and I try to avoid chocolate, any kind of bean or legume, soy, several different vegetables, and a bunch of other assorted random foods. Avoiding soy is the hardest logistically, but avoiding beans and chocolate hurts my soul. Fun thing about nickel allergies is they can kind of come and go any time throughout your life, depending on your body, so I’m always hoping mine will decide to leave me one day but so far no luck!

[goblinparty]

thinking of giving into my gutterpunk instincts and piercing myself again

[wafflelovingbatgirl]

It never ceases to amuse me that a) people are capable of being allergic to metals and it’s alloys and b) Mistborns/mistings & Ferruchemist could have this issue

So I like to imagine my Terris oc constantly rubbing at her earrings because they are itching her and taking off her bracelets because they’ve given her a rash. Poor Steelrunner, keeps them for tradition but hates it.

[moonscape]

sad!

[princess-of-the-corner]

So, 'fun' bit of Bat Fanon, but people have this idea that Tim is allergic to shellfish and that his parents used to make him eat it as a punishment or almost killed him by feeding it to him after forgetting he was allergic.

Like, the Drakes weren't great but they were like, B average or B minus at worst. Some stuff seen comes off worse due to shifting views on parenting but that isn't different to Bruce spanking Dick in some older comics.

I saw someone compare it to how the canon love interests that get in the way of a fan preferred ship get made into horrible monsters, but in this case its parents standing between their child and adoption.

But yeah, shellfish allergy.

It all came from one popular fic and now tons of people who've never read comics ardently believe Tim is allergic to shellfish and was tortured by his parents incompetence or malice.

I love how the times change and what's 'acceptable' changes.

Thankfully I haven't run into those fics yet. Usually when I see a fic addressing Tim's parents they're less actively malicious and more "Eh Timmy's old enough to be left alone without burning the manor down. Let's go to Europe for six months!".

Which. Is still bad ofc. But far different from *gestures to shellfish*

[bestiarum]

someone tell roy kent that he's probably not allergic to *metal* but just to nickel which is a fairly common allergy and that they make lots of nickel free products so he can just. get a nickel free whistle

[macbxth-pdf]

More people need to learn about magnetic clasp on necklaces. Like as an acrylic nail lover, it can be hard to get necklaces on and off. Plus when I had BED BINDING migraines (prior to getting glasses), I would struggle to get jewelry off and I would just leave it on. Not only are these type of clasp amazing for abled bodied people, they help out disabled people as well. Please hype up magnetic clasp so more companies have them as an option.

[enthblaze]

allergic to cheap earrings and still wearing em cuz theyre cute (my ears are burning)

[sol-flo]

that steel sheet artwork i rbd to @solflo-keepsakes is driving me crazy... that's a medium i'd love to work with, it's calling me like a siren........

[shitpostingkats]

Ace Attorney be like "I'm sorry witness, that last part you said about eighteen century coin smithing, could you elaborate on that?"

"What? Oh, I'm only a novice collector, but- *does a little wriggle* "

“Phoenix Wright, are you just stalling for time?"

“I assure you your honor, what Licka Cents has to say will be prove to be vital to finding out the truth of what really happened that night!

(He's right, I am just stalling for time. But I have a feeling....)

*Evil gay person voice* "Tut tut tut. Penis Wright, will you never learn? The only place for bullshit in my courtroom-" *strikes a pose* "Is in the garbäge!"

[duskianfae]

🫶

[artykyn]

here’s a token to cash in whenever you want: so what about piercings at claire’s?

Okay you asked

First of all, a traditional piercing at a reputable piercing studio uses a hollow needle to pierce your ear. The earring is essentially threaded into your ear. Needles are super sharp, sterile, and single-use.

Claire's uses a gun.

It's a special gun that loads up the earring and jams it right into your ear. They market this as "needle free piercing!" to, I don't know, calm people who are afraid of needles? But here's the thing: the gun hurts way way worse than a needle. You aren't being pierced with a sharp needle, you are being jabbed by a blunt earring.

Needle? Clean, smooth hole. Gun? Well... think about what happens if you shoot a bullet through a target. On the front, it looks like a clean circle. On the back?

That's the back of your ear after getting pierced by a gun!

Your tissues are super screwed up, your piercing wound is way bigger than it would be with a clean, sharp needle, and your healing process is more complicated. The stud you stick on the back of your earring is pressed against all that loose flappy damaged skin that is now desperate to heal itself from such blunt force trauma-- don't be surprised if your skin grows and heals around the stud in the same way that trees "consume" things.

Also you can't even sterilize a piercing gun properly. Shopping mall piercing kiosks claim that it's sterile but the fact is that single-use needles and disposable surgical gloves are way more sterile than a gun you clean between every customer.

Claire's tries to market it as a "No contact!" piercing method that's "cleaner" because the piercer's hand doesn't have to touch your ear. If you trust a surgeon to physically touch your organs then what's the big deal about a professional piercer touching your ear?

Since the cartilage of your ear is way more delicate than your lobe, using a piercing gun there is more likely to straight up shatter your ear. Like shooting a gun at a block of wood. Lots of cracks and splinters!!

By the way, Claire's is not the only place that uses piercing guns. In fact, you can even buy them yourself online to do "at-home piercing".

Avoid them. Oh my god please avoid them.

Second of all you need high-grade metal for an initial piercing. Low-grade stainless steel is okay for a healed piercing. But using it for an initial piercing is how you risk allergic reactions, irritation, rejection (it never heals, and your body forces it out). This is also how you can put yourself at risk of spontaneously developing a nickel allergy that you will have for the rest of your life! (Like me!!)

Claire's does have some high-grade metals you can choose from. But they also offer stainless steel. Most stainless steels use nickel as part of the alloy mix. If you're going for stainless steel for a first piercing, get surgical-grade.

Let's assume you wanted an aquarium. Obviously, a store that specializes in aquariums has better products than a generic store like Petco. The employees at an aquarium store are also WAY better informed about aquariums and fish, and can give you better advice, as opposed to the average Petco worker, who has a general knowledge of all animals but nothing too in-depth about any specific ones. Some of the suggestions I've been given by Petco workers would 100% be animal torture. They don't know better.

That's Claire's. The employees aren't professional piercers, they are retail workers who got basic piercing training. For that reason, piercings are super cheap! You get what you pay for.

My final gripe is around piercing culture in general. Piercings are, I'm sure you're aware, often gendered as a "feminine" thing. A woman having her ear lobes pierced is super common. And if a woman wants to have pierced ears, okay, but my issue is with mothers who take their infant baby girls to get their ears pierced.

Those are women who did not want to get their ears pierced. Their mothers forced it upon them as a baby, because their mothers had some weird obsession with gender roles and aesthetic appearance and wanted to treat their baby like a doll. If a man forced his girlfriend to get her ears pierced so she'd look more feminine, that'd be sketchy. Why is it okay for mothers to pierce their baby's ears?? A baby is a human being, not a toy.

Putting a bow on your kid is one thing. Putting them through permanent body-altering procedures for the sake of YOUR aesthetics, however? Would you tattoo freckles on your child if freckles were considered a cute feminine thing for girls to have? Would you sign your brown-eyed baby up to get that procedure that turns their eyes blue, if blue eyes were considered feminine? What is your limit? How far do gender roles have to go before you question them?

Let people choose for THEMSELVES if they want to get a piercing, or any other body alteration. For goodness's sake. Why does that have to be said.

"Oh it's just a piercing it's not a big deal" babies do not understand the care instruction "do not touch". The baby will touch the piercing. The baby will crawl and roll around and put their ears against the floor and many other things. The risk of infection and bad healing is super high. The risk of your child now growing up with a deformed ear is super high.

ESPECIALLY if you use a piercing gun.

And guess what?

Claire's will happily pierce your baby's ears for you.

[whosname]

Some weeks ago I was taking my mum to a doctor's appointment and saw a sign on a veterinarian/pet shop announcing their deliveries with two cats on a moped and, yeah, you can fill the gaps in my train of thought.

Mopeds are fucking hard to draw, I'm full of admiration for Sorachi Hideaki and the anime team, goddammit.

I saw a photo o a cat wearing a donut collar and thought, oh, cat Gintoki!

[stewyonmolly]

found italian snail mucin this is about to change the whole game🐌🐌🐌🐌🐌