I'm sure you're asking "WTF are you talking about and where is my super cool greeting that I expect from someone as kickass as kciR?"   Welp, I was trying to think of something clever to open this article with, and decided to cut the bullshit and just jump into it.  

What could it be?  What is it worth?  Why do cheese fries get soggy before I eat them?

It is quality body modification work.  It is worth your health, comfort, and the ability to take pride in something done right.  Cheese fries get soggy before you eat them because you are a sissy and don't eat fast enough.

In wasted materials alone it costs about 12$ for me to do a standard piercing, from a navel to an ear cartilidge piercing.  This includes all the PPE (gloves, face masks/shields, bibs), disposables (paper towells, toothpicks, q-tips), needles, the ink or jewelery itself, cleaning products (sani-wipes, madicide, vionex), and a host of other minute single-use products.   

Costs cut here hurt the client directly and immediately.  Using cheap or latex gloves can lead to instant reactions such as anaphylactic shock or weeping rashes from allergic reactions to the powders or chemicals contained in the gloves themselves.  Cheap paper towells can leave residue on or even in the skin in the form of tiny paper particles or dust.  If the jewelery or ink presented in the new modification is not high quality it can lead to rashes, migration, festering wounds, chronic illness associated with heavy metal poisoning, and a host of other problems which interfere with you healing quickly, if at all.   When it comes to piercing, the threading and metal composition are both factors that can quickly double to octuple (that's eight times, dumbass) the price.   Using low-quality needles for either tattooing or piercing becomes readily apparent the minute a hooked or barbed needle hits and snags in your skin.

Most studios take 40-60% of the artist's cut.  A lot of us buy our own supplies and still shell out the same ammount to the studio we work for.  This money isn't straight profit for them, either.  It goes to pay rent (roughly 4k$/mo here) electric (1.2k$/mo avg so far) advertising (400-1k$ for a small add, 6k$/mo for a billboard) misc non-procedure related supplies (mop heads, bleach, pine-sol, we have cookies and coffee for our clients, this list could get bigger than my ego), health dept. licensing (1.4k$/year for the studio alone), the occasional lunch for the starving piercer, etc.

Time spent at the studio is a HUGE factor for us artists.  Most of us spend more time at work than we do at home.  I've personally spent almost a continous week at the studio, asleep on the couch or on a table in the back, just to open the next day.   Piercers or tattoo artists that work at small studios typically work way more than 60 hours a week, since there aren't many people to relieve us.  I am scheduled for 56 hours a week and often stay late and come in on my day off.  99% of that time is spent doing something that we don't get paid for, as we don't get paid if we aren't with a client.  Add onto that the monetary and time cost of classes, lectures, researching new techniques and learning about improving sanitary procedures, medical and first aid courses, and we really are slaves to the studio.

I see myself getting overly long winded on this outpour, so I'll stop listing expenses and  bemoaning costs.  In short, there are MANY reasons why a studio would charge 40-60$ for a standard piercing and why we don't come out like bandits in the end.  Hell, if you break down my pay for the last year hourly, I make way under minimum wage.  I'll have been industry for 11 years at the end of may.  Why do I make so little?  Assclown discount studios and hood shops that could give two fucks less how their work looks or heals.  

Money-oriented shops throw everything I've mentioned in this article out of the window and go for the cheapest route.  They buy the least expensive jewelery they can find from chinese factories and improvise whatever they have to in order for it to work with what you want.  They have minimum training and don't care to learn more.  They can't answer questions about the materials used, they don't know how to properly clean or prevent cross contamination, and they don't fucking care.  They thrive off the price-shopping uninformed and vastly uncaring public.  Their concept of aftercare is either based off hearsay or quackery at best.  

If you value your health and actully want people to not criticize a jenky tattoo then shell out some cash for it.  If you want a piercing that you can enjoy or a tattoo that actually resembles the concept you had in mind then go talk to someone who can let their work represent them. 

 Check portfolios, NOT prices, and you may end up happier in the end.

I'm out.  I don't want to talk to you no more.

- kciR