P.B.J. Studio Policies: Piercing Regulations for British Columbia and Canada

Piercing Teenagers

Although there is no actual "legal" age for body piercing in Canada, most body piercing facilities are governed by local health units and city licensing bodies, in most areas the actual municipal bylaw age may be 16 to 19 years. Youth are considered adults at the age of 19 years, this is what is considered the age of majority ( allowing them to actively vote in elections, etc. ). Ear piercing boutiques and retail stores are not licensed to conduct any form of piercing, but due to a loop hole in most municipal licensing policies, they are more often licensed for "retail sales", which means they are never inspected by the local health units for safety and sterilization procedures. If you are considering getting anything pierced at the mall or plaza you may want to keep this in mind, for your own health and safety they are no safer than you attempting to pierce your ears in the bathroom with a safety pin.

Case In Point: http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6157485%255E13762,00.html
Interesting story about piercing guns and problems, click the link above to read the story

Professional Piercing Facilities

All professional piercing facilities reserve the right to refuse to perform body piercing on anyone of any age if they believe the individual is not mature enough to care for their piercing. Our reputation is on the line with every piercing that walks out the door, and we will not jeopardize that reputation by having a client abuse or ignore their piercing during the healing stage. Similarly, if a client indicates that his or her parents will respond negatively to the intended piercing, we reserve the right to refuse service.

Proof of age must be presented upon request.

Acceptable documents include:

For individuals under the age of 16 or the required bylaw age, parental or guardian presence is required, and the parent or guardian will be required to sign our waiver. A written letter of permission will not be accepted nor is a phone call home to parents from the shop.

Teenagers:  When you choose to be pierced by a professional body piercer, you pay a lot of money for that piercer's expertise, for proper jewellery that will not irritate the piercing, and for the best possible opportunity of having a piercing heal without irritation or infection.

Things to keep in mind, any shop that will pierce you without parental consent is not the place to get your piercing from. Why? Well generally chances are good that the shop has a poor standing with the local health unit, reuse needles, reuse jewellery, poor or sub-standard jewellery and basically no respect for you or your body. However your wallet or purse looks really good to them. Chances are really good the piercer isn't who they claim to be, that is properly trained in the art of body piercing and conversant with acceptable practices in hygiene, sterilization and post piercing aftercare .

If there is a chance that a parent or guardian will demand that you remove the jewellery immediately, the piercing will heal over very quickly (less than 24 hours), and you will have nothing to show for the money you spent.

You will have the jewellery, but nowhere to put it. If your parents are opposed to you being pierced, try to discuss the issue with them. Find out if they are opposed to piercing in general, or the specific piercing that you want. We are more than willing to talk with parents either over the phone, or in person, and we also have several information brochures in our studios which provide information on body piercing, and the pros and cons of individual piercings.

As professional body piercers, we require not just parental consent, but consent from the individual being pierced as well. This is in keeping with the requirement in B.C. for informed consent, this means the person (baby is a person) must know how to take care of the piercing and be aware of the dangers related to such piercing. In addition, there is substantial medical documentation indicating that parents often do not recognize the early warning signs of infection or allergic reaction in the pierced ears of babies, and as a result, treatment is often delayed while the infection or reaction worsens.

Piercing Gun Boutiques - The "Smoking Gun"

In the case of manufacturer's defects, you will be given three options: (1) Full-price refund. (2) Exact item exchange. (3) Full credit towards a different jewellery item or a piercing. In all other cases, we do not offer refunds or exchanges. We do, however, make every effort to ensure the jewellery you purchase is the correct size and gauge for your piercing, and we will "install" the jewellery at no extra charge. If you are considering jewellery or a piercing as a gift for another individual, we offer Gift Certificates for either a specific dollar amount, or a specific jewellery item or piercing.

Because of the risk of infection or irritation due to sub-standard metal in a fresh piercing, we will only use jewellery that has been purchased from our studio for all fresh piercings. We believe that this policy is quite standard among professional body piercers, so it is important to consider before you purchase "body jewellery" of questionable quality from a boutique that does not offer piercing services.

If you have purchased body jewellery from a retailer that sells jewellery with the Pacific Body Jewellery label, we will use the jewellery if we can confirm the jewellery is ours. If you have purchased our jewellery from a retail outlet, and intend to have it used for a fresh piercing, please bring the item in before the scheduled piercing so that we can confirm it's origin, inspect it for defects and autoclave it before the piercing.

Check out these links and learn about the regulations governing body piercing facilities in Canada.

Health Canada (Guidelines for control of infectious disease) 

Ministry of Health Province of British Columbia (Guidelines for P.S.E. Piercing)

We are often asked to change clients jewellery in there piercings for them, we don't mind providing this as a service to clients who purchase jewellery from us and we do this at no charge. However we have been flooded with requests to change jewellery for people who didn't receive the piercing from us and who have come in with jewellery they have purchased else where, usually from boutiques and other retail outlets selling "body jewelry".

 We have been flooded with this form of request so often that it has now become a point that we have to charge a fee for providing this service to those individuals who come in with outside jewellery and are looking for this service for free. We hate to do this but it has come to that point where our services are being considered as a public service that is free of charge.

We will still provide jewellery change services to paying clients who purchase jewellery from us, however those who bring outside jewellery into our shop will have to pay a service fee in advance of the service being provided. We want people to understand that to keep our prices competitive we incur costs to provide services and those who receive services requiring instruments and materials to be used will be required to pay for those services we provide.

Learn what to look for in a piercing facility check out our page "I want to get a piercing".