Professional piercers use medical forceps during a piercing procedure. Two types of forceps are common in body piercing, Pennington and Forrester. Pennington forceps have a triangular end and Forrester ends are oval shaped. Body piercers use Forresters for tongue piercings and use Pennington forceps for general body piercings such as a labret, eyebrow or navel. During a piercing procedure, a piercer uses hemostats to aid the piercer during jewelry insertion. Hemostats hold the jewelry or beads steady while a piercer is inserting jewelry into a piercing in an intricate or small area, such as the tragus ear cartilage piercing.
An autoclave is a medical device that uses the combination of heat, steam and pressure to sterilize a piercer's supplies, tools, jewelry and needles. The piercer places the supplies, tools, jewelry and needles in pouches that seal before inserting the load into the autoclave. Once the first cycle of the autoclave ceases and the pouches dry during the vent cycle, the piercer removes the sterilized equipment with clean gloves. The piercer places the sterile equipment in a drawer or cabinet that is strictly for sterile instruments. Bare hands or dirty gloves will contaminate sterile body piercing instruments and will render the instruments unusable on a client.
Piercers use one of two types of gauze, prepackaged sterile gauze or non-sterile gauze. Piercers can sterilize the non-sterile gauze in an autoclave at the piercing shop. Placing the gauze in the same pouch as the forceps is common to make the piercer's set-up during the procedure quicker. A piercer uses gauze during a piercing procedure to clean the skin before the piercing and for cleaning blood and marks off a client afterward.The same piece of gauze cannot be used to prep the client's skin and to clean the blood and marks off. After the gauze touches the client's skin, the gauze is considered contaminated and a biohazard and cannot be re-sterilized. The piercer disposes of the gauze after use on the client’s skin.
Cannula needles are a type of medical needle that punctures the skin to create a piercing hole. Unlike traditional, tri-bevel hollow needles for piercing, cannulas have a plastic hub that covers the needle. Piercers use surgical scissors to cut the large portion of the cannula off the back and remove the needle from the hub after piercing the skin. The hub remains in the client's skin, while the piercer inserts the jewelry into one side of the hub. The piercer pushes the jewelry into the new piercing hole while the jewelry is attached to the hub. After the jewelry is completely in the new piercing hole, the piercer removes the hub from the jewelry. Some piercers feel this method ensures a smooth needle-to-jewelry transfer in the client's skin and prefer using cannula needles instead of traditional piercing needles.