In the state I live in, a tattoo artist can tattoo anyone of any age so long as their parents consent. Imagine walking into a tattoo studio, and hearing the cries of a baby or small child as an artist with no formal training shoves an unsanitized sewing needle into their skin. “The parent gave me permission, and if I don’t do it someone else will,” the artist says. “Its so cute, and it doesn’t hurt, they’ll thank me when they’re grown up,” insists their parents. “The artist isn’t using actual tattoo needles, but they know what they’re doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to otherwise,” comments and onlooker. You’d be obviously upset at what was going on. So why is the image above sickening, but all these comments are okay about a baby getting their ears pierced with a gun at Claire’s?

In the body modification community, there is a wide disgust for piercing guns, and for good reason. Rather than using a piercing needle, which cuts a crescent shape into the flesh, piercing guns are blunt and get jammed through the ear lobe, causing trauma to the flesh. In addition to this, where as all instruments used by a professional piercer are sterile, and either thrown away or autoclaved after use, piercing guns cannot be properly sterilized. Then you must take into account training involved. All professional piercers go through 1-3+ years training, and have to attend many classes to get proper certifications. No such training is provided for employees at Claire’s who perform the piercings. Their training involves watching a half hour video.

You don’t have to look far to find someone with a horror story about getting pierced with a gun. My own sister was pierced with a piercing gun, and it became so infected that the flesh grew over the jewelry. This is not an isolated incident, as almost everyone I asked about had a similar experience:

“I’m left with scarring and swelling when I try to wear a ring.”

“My ears got all weepy and bloody and I had to go to the doctors to have them taken out; they were stuck in my ears because of the blood.”

“The gun got stuck so they had to force them through and I was bleeding and I have scar tissue now.”

“I stopped wearing earrings about 8 years ago, they’ve sense closed, but will feel sore and if I squeeze them puss comes out.”

“They became so infected that it became physically painful to clean them.”

“The gun broke in my ear.”

“I got my ears pierced 4 years ago. They still get really irritated if I lay on one side for too long, and they will bleed sometimes.”

“I got both of my ears pierced when I was in 4th grade. They both got super swollen. One of them was so swollen that it enveloped the earring and my grandma took pliers to get it out.”

“”I cleaned them, I took care of them, and they still got so badly infected. My ears hurt for months, constantly.”

One former employee of Claire’s shared her story with me:

“I used to work at Claire's years ago in Saskatchewan, Canada. It was my first job, and I was only there for about 4-5 months, but the ear piercing was without a doubt the worst part of the job (especially knowing how bad it was to be piercing with a gun and cheap jewelry). But it was a part of the job, and every employee HAD to do it. (At least that's how our store manager ran things.) The training was a joke. It was about an hour out of our shift where the manager would walk us through the set-up and "cleaning" and she would have us pierce a flat piece of foam with an ear drawn on it as practice. You know... nothing like piercing an actual ear.
The gun was reused and only sanitized with alcohol wipes, and everything was kept in the same cupboard, except for the earrings which were kept in the back room. Super sterile, right? Easily my least favorite part of the job was piercing kids' ears who clearly didn't want to get them done, but the parents forced them to do it anyway. I remember one kid was having such a temper tantrum, but the parent refused to leave (and my manager refused to lose the sale) that my manager held the kid down and got kicked in the gut while I tried my best not to f up this kids ear.
It was also all about meeting the numbers every week. We had to pierce so many ears a week to keep on "track" of the goals that management would send out, and our store manager would have us walk through the mall trying to get people into the store to get their ears pierced so we could make our weekly numbers if we were falling short. Like....excuse me??
I also remember getting in trouble one day for telling a girl who wanted her cartilage pierced that she should go to an actual piercing studio to get it done with a needle and not a gun, since the gun can cause irreparable damage, and my manager gave me shit for telling her that since we lost the sale.
Sorry I didn't want to mutilate that girls ear for a sale?
I hated that job, and every time I had to pierce ears, I went out of my way to do the best job that I could with what I had to work with, KNOWING how bad piercing guns are, but I can certainly tell you that not every employee there cares at all about what they're doing. I've never walked into a Claire's since I quit.”

We are calling for Claire’s to stop the practice of having untrained employees piercing children with dangerous instruments, for the health and safety of the children whose ears are being mutilated, and to stick to what the employees sign up for:  Selling cheap, low quality accessories.