How to Safely Pierce Ears Amid a Pandemic

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How to Safely Pierce Ears Amid a Pandemic

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In a fear-laden world where everyone's a germophobe and afraid to breathe or touch others, and laws requiring face masks and social distancing are in place, something like ear piercing requires more extensive safety precautions than other businesses, so how are they being done safely? For these companies they go to great lengths to keep people healthy while keeping their businesses alive in hard times. Here's how. :)

How to Safely Pierce Ears Amid a Pandemic
By Lenore Fedow
lenore.fedow@nationaljeweler.com
September 21, 2020


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Brian Keith Thompson of Body Electric Tattoo shares the steps he’s taken to resume ear piercings safely in his Los Angeles studio.

"New York—Life has been returning to some semblance of normalcy as retailers reopen stores and restaurants cautiously welcome back guests, but the COVID-19 pandemic lingers.

It casts a shadow over our everyday activities and forces us to rethink how we approach nearly everything, including retail.

The jewelry business is a hands-on world, particularly if a store does ear piercings. But, how can ear piercing services continue safely in light of the pandemic?

National Jeweler hopped on a Zoom interview with Kecia Caffie, senior vice president and general manager of Piercing Pagoda, then called Brian Keith Thompson of Body Electric Tattoo in Los Angeles to find out.

Getting back to business is a learning process.

Piercing Pagoda stopped offering ear piercing services around late March, right around the time parent company Signet Jewelers Ltd. temporarily closed all North American locations.

Prior to the closures, there was no blanket mandate, said Caffie, noting stores were able to determine for themselves when to stop piercing, depending on the local situation and guidelines.

Piercing Pagoda kiosks began to open in late April alongside Signet’s other stores, but the free piercings didn’t start back up right away.

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Kecia Caffie, senior vice president and general manager of Piercing Pagoda

“All of us were learning a lot about what living with COVID would be like. And so, we were starting to establish our general safety procedures for just general shopping,” she said.

All stores under the Signet umbrella are implementing Love Takes Care, a system of safety protocols that covers everything from social distancing and face masks to trying on jewelry and screening employees.

It was established in partnership with Cleveland Clinic, the No. 2 ranked hospital in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report.

Caffie described that time of reopening as a learning experience.

“We wanted to spend some time really learning from medical experts on the best way to protect both our customers and our team members before we started piercing again.”

In Los Angeles, Body Electric Tattoo had to make a few changes when it reopened, including following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the letter.

L.A. tattoo shops and other personal service businesses temporarily closed in March. They reopened in June but were closed down in July as the number of COVID-19 cases in the city rose.

Limited indoor operations were allowed to resume again in September.

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Keith Thompson of Body Electric TattooThompson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, took the Corps’ “adapt and overcome” motto to heart.

“Complaining about it is not going to get it to go away quicker. Adapting these safety protocols will,” he said.

The tattoo and piercing shop, founded in 1992 on the famous Melrose Avenue, is running with a skeleton crew.

“This isn’t something I like working in. But the only other alternative is for me to lose everything that I’ve worked 15 years to obtain, so I decided to do it as safely as possible,” said Thompson, who left a corporate job and cashed out his 401(k) to buy Body Electric in 2006.

His niece, Veronica, takes phone calls and schedules the appointments while his “sidekick” Richard sets up the piercing station and assists with the cleaning.

“Life is much slower in the studio when you’re operating like this, but you can’t put a price on safety and human life.”

Health and safety are the top priorities.

When a business requires employees to be in close proximity to customers attention to health and safety is paramount, especially in the time of COVID-19.

Piercing Pagoda’s safety procedure for piercings was announced May 27, about a month after the reopening process began.

Most locations were prepared to restart piercings by the middle of June. Stores reopened gradually, with 450 of the chain’s 555 kiosks open by early September.

There is generally a week between when a store reopens and when piercings are able to begin, allowing time for cleaning, training and preparation.

To start piercing again, educating the team was crucial, said Caffie.

Everyone in the organization is a certified piercer, she said, but there was extra training in place.

“We went back and made sure that there was no issue, no possibility that someone didn’t know exactly what our base assumptions were about how you pierce someone safely.”

District managers spoke with every employee to ensure the training had been taken, and made sure they were able to answer questions about the new procedures.

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Signet Jewelers-owned chain Piercing Pagoda is taking extra precautions to ensure customer ear piercings are happening again safely after a COVID-19-related halt.

Both Piercing Pagoda and Body Electric Tattoo are regularly cleaning before and after customer visits and disinfecting high-touch surfaces.

The pandemic hurt Thompson’s business, but he has no intention of straying from the proper safety measures.

“I’ve been hit very heavy by this pandemic, but I’m not complaining about it,” he said. “What type of person would I be if I only saw profits and I didn’t care about human life?”

Here’s how the piercing process works. ... "


https://www.nationaljeweler.com/majors/ ... a-pandemic
PinkDiamond
ISG Registered Gemologist


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