All About Piercing Little Girls Ears

So we’ve um’ed and ah’ed about getting the girls ears pierced for ages because the truth is, I was terrified of taking them.  I mean, I had no idea how they would react.  Would they get one earring in, then scream blue murder and run out the mall into oncoming traffic?  Would they cry so loudly that all the windows in the place would shatter simultaneously?  Would I pass out on top of them with stress?

Really, the options of things that could go wrong were endless.  At least in my head they were.

But the girls kept mentioning that they wanted to do it for their birthday (which incidentally both happen this month), so I did a bit of research and apparently the best way to get your holes done, is to go to a piercing person who usually happens to resides in a tattoo parlour.  Cool.  No problem.  Except finding a tattoo parlour with a person willing to pierce little people’s ears was harder than I initially thought.  Eventually we found Body Architects (near Cavendish) who were willing to do it (thanks to Maz who suggested it).

I chatted to the girls about finding a place and Kyla decided that she was going to do it.  With a needle in her ear at a tattoo parlour.  She was excited, but gosh, you could see she was nervous as we drove to Cavendish.

Now, I’ve spent a decent amount of time in tattoo parlours in my lifetime (to get these, this, oh and that) – enough to forget how daunting it must look for a 7 year old that just wants to pierce her ears.  Walking into a rather dark room that’s humming with the buzz of needles of the heavily tattooed artists was a bit scarier than she anticipated.  When the wonderfully friendly woman with a couple of piercings on her face asked if she could help us, Kyla begged us to leave.  She changed her mind in a hurry.

At this point, I hope you don’t think that we are raising prudes or judgey Mac Judgersons.  The opposite I would hope.  I mean, we both have tattoos and had piercings along the line – our kids are used to this and don’t even bat an eyelid for that type of thing.  I just think it was super overwhelming walking into a place like that when you’re not even tall enough to see over the counter.

A couple of days before this, the girls had gone to watch Finding Dory with their Aunty Romy at Cavendish.  While they were there, they spotted an ear-piercing place and now she asked if we could rather go there and see what that was like.  So off we went.  It ended up being Claire’s which was like chalk and cheese to the tattoo parlour.  Brightly lit and filled to the brim with pretty jewellery to look at.  Even enough selection of “piercing” earrings to have her excited enough to decide to actually do it.

But needle is better than gun?!

Yeah, I know the needle piercing is supposed to be better – less chance of infection or skew holes.  I know.  But here’s what I like about the Claire’s piercing:

• They do both ears at the same time – so there’s no risk of walking out with only one ear with a hole in it
• They give you a teddy to cuddle, a sweet at the end AND a sticker
• There’s a big rang of options that you can pierce with – regular stainless steel, titanium, gold, gold-plated and white gold.
• They really seem to know what they are doing.

Some history…

Now, before I get to the girls doing their ears, we need to throw back to the first time I got mine done.  I was roughly their age and determined to wear pretty earrings like all of my friends (who happened to get their done at like 6 months old or something).  Which I did.  But they pierced it with I don’t even know what metal.  So despite fastidiously cleaning it every day, my ears got crazy infected.  To the point that my earlobe was two to three times its usual thickness and oozing bright greeny yellow puss.  Not the best image I know, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  The Doctor could hardly even find the earring now embedded inside my ear to get it out.  It was not fun.

Upon doing my ears again a couple of years later I realised that I was actually heavily allergic to regular metals in my body and could only have silver or gold.  (Let’s hope I never have to have a pace maker or something – how bloody expensive).

Back to the future

Now fast forward to the girls getting theirs done and me freaking out that the same thing will happen to them.  This meant that we opted for the more expensive white gold option, just to be sure that they would heal OK.  (Which I think was a great decision because their ears are healing beautifully)

Claire’s also provides you with a cleaning solution (a salt water combination – NO SURGICAL SPIRITS) to use three times a day.  Then you have to leave the earrings that they used to pierce it for 6 weeks and if you decide to change it after those 6 weeks, you need to keep those in for another 6 months.

Kyla went first and was SO brave.  She sat there cuddled her bear and when it was over she just had a bit of a shocked look on her face.  But honestly, she’s usually quite reserved so I didn’t expect too much drama.  But because Kyla was so cool about it, Riya decided that she too was going to pierce her ears.  But needing more comfort, she sat on my lap.  Once it was done there was about 2 seconds where she was fine, but then burst into tears saying, “But it was sore, it WAS sore!“.  Then about 5 minutes later she was smiling and laughing – like nothing even happened.

They are both so glad that they did it.

I have since heard about places that do it for much cheaper than what we paid (like R80) but I’m glad that we went to Claire’s.  With my genes in them, I have no doubt that we would have had endless issues if we had gone the cheaper route.