Makeup & Your Piercing Appointment

Let’s talk about makeup and piercings! Now, I already have a blog post all about how makeup can affect things with healing and healed piercings (and one on skincare for my skincare folks!). But what about getting pierced? See- folks want to look their best when they get a new piercing so they can show it off afterward. Of course, I understand the desire to share that new sparkle with everyone and get your new piercing selfie in. I do the same. But increasingly folks are coming in with a full face of makeup, looking incredible….and very disappointed when we have to remove a large section of their makeup in order to work with them. One of my peers even recently lamented seeing a client come out of the studio bathroom having applied fresh foundation. And contour around their brand-new nostril piercing. An unfortunate recipe for irritation and issues.

Alas, we cannot pierce through skin with makeup on it. This could introduce the makeup and any bacteria contained in it into the fresh piercing. It also prevents our skin prep chemicals from working correctly to ensure the site of your new piercing is clean. It’s also just kind of difficult to accurately mark for piercings over some makeup products- especially a full coverage foundation, lip gloss, or certain powder products. Our main priority as piercers is to provide safe, clean, and correctly performed piercings and to ensure that you have a comfortable experience the entire time. This will mean removing makeup. For folks who have done an immaculate, full coverage base or incredibly detailed brows, this can be really disappointing. And not every studio is equipped with makeup remover, so this sometimes means scrubbing at the area with some alcohol or saline and leaving you not only with a big spot missing from your makeup but some red or irritated skin from all the cleaning. And piercers- this is a great reason to keep single-use makeup remover pads in your studio- so you can easily and comfortably remove heavy makeup for clients. Especially for folks with sensitive skin, the amount of scrubbing sometimes can cause some irritation to people's skin. Piercing through raw or tender skin is no fun, so makeup remover is essential.

Ideally, however, we wouldn’t have to. Because it would be the best scenario if folks didn’t come in wearing heavy makeup for their appointments, at least in the area of piercing! For example, if you want to get a philtrum piercing on your upper lip, you can still wear makeup, but maybe skip the lipstick and don’t apply foundation on the upper lip. If you want to get your eyebrow pierced, consider not filling in your brows fully, and doing lighter makeup for your base around it. If you come prepared, we won’t have to leave you with an awkward spot of removed makeup, or that post-red-lipstick-smear that just never fully comes off till the morning.

Now, if you understand that it’s going to need to be removed, and you truly don’t mind, then go for it! It really only takes an extra few minutes for us to clean and prep the area, and I don’t want clients to feel like they can’t express themselves to come in to be pierced. But if the thought of having us create a big spot in your makeup that's missing is stressful, or if your skin could be sensitive to us scrubbing the makeup off, please consider coming in without anything on in the area where we will be piercing! I promise you look great with or without it. We as piercers want you to have a happy, healthy, safe piercing, and minimizing the makeup you wear to your appointment is one big way to help us do that.