'Her ear was shattered' - home piercings leading to deformities, says expert

"Her ear is completely shattered, it's tilting forward and there's nothing that can be done about it."

Lucy Quinn from Barry said she has seen injuries caused by piercing guns become increasingly common in the four years since she became a professional piercer.

Among the worst are ones people have performed on themselves with at home piercing kits and piercing guns purchased online, she said.

"We're seeing people with really bad scarring or deformities," said Quinn.

A wound care expert said some people are visiting A&E units to have embedded piercings removed.

The UK Association of Professional Piercers (UKAPP) has called for at-home kits and piercing guns to be abolished.

"It's really hard to understand just how bad it is," said Quinn, a manager at Empress Piercing studio where piercings are performed by needle only.

The 30-year-old said piercing guns use "blunt jewellery to create the piercing hole, whereas a needle is a hollow, smooth cannula needle which creates a really smooth, clean piercing canal".

She said the consequences of self piercing with at-home kits "can range from maybe uneven lobes to a completely shattered helix or tragus" [parts of the ear].

One of her regular customers had "completely shattered" her ear and "there's nothing that can be done about it", she said.

"We get clients coming in to us wanting to pierce, and we have to work around their scarring, and maybe the fact they [the previous piercings] may not be even or straight."

Quinn said the ideal situation would be banning kits, but "that's just not something that's going to happen overnight".

"Age restrictions would be a really good start," she said.

Maddie was 14 when she bought an at-home piercing kit online after seeing videos on TikTok of people using them.

She said it was "really easy" to buy, with no age verification checks - there are no minimum age rules for people purchasing such kits.

"I really wanted my seconds and thirds [lobe piercings] done, so I bought a kit on Amazon, and it was quite cheap and I pierced them," said Maddie.

Most of her piercings were fine, except two that caused her discomfort.

"My thirds didn't really heal that well and they ended up becoming a bit infected," she said.

Now aged 17, Maddie from Torfaen said young teens should not have easy access to kits.

"I do think there should be age verification because being as young as I was, I didn't realise the risks that it could come with."

In the UK, there is no minimum age for ear piercings carried out by a professional, but studios generally enforce their own minimum age rules.

In Wales, it is against the law to perform an intimate piercing, such as nipple, genitals or tongue on anyone under the age of 18.

In England and Scotland, there is no legal age of consent to have a body piercing procedure performed, but many studios typically enforce a strict 18 and over policy.

Kits sold online can be bought for as little as £1.50 on a variety of online websites.

When contacted for a response, some retailers that sell the kits online referred to the fact there are no restrictions to sell these products in the UK.

An Amazon spokesperson said that they require all products to "comply with applicable laws, regulations and Amazon policies" and "do not sell products for purchase by children", and can take action if these rules are not followed.

EBay, who also sell the kits said that as there were no restrictions in the UK that "prohibit the sale of at-home piercing kits", they were "widely available" and "not prohibited" on the platform.

Maddie said her TikTok algorithm played a major role in influencing her decision to buy a kit and pierce herself.

"I saw people promoting the kits and I wanted to get it done," she said.

Having since seen that the piercings can cause complications, she said social media companies should do more to warn users.

"Maybe they should put a warning on certain videos that involve using a gun, just so people know the risks," said Maddie.

TikTok has been approached for comment.

Professional piercer Rhian Mansfield, 42, is part of the UKAPP, an organisation that worked with the Welsh government to implement the UK's first mandatory national licensing scheme for body piercing.

She said the risk of piercing in unsterile environments could cause infection and cross-contamination.

"The jewellery [used in the kits to pierce] isn't very sharp so it's also causing a lot of trauma to the tissue cartilage," she said.

"We, as the UKAPP, would like to see these guns, contraptions, just completely banned," she said.

The Welsh government said: "Safety of these products cannot be guaranteed especially if purchased online.

"We would always advise people not to use DIY kits for piercing but to go to a fully licensed, professional piercer operating from an approved premises."

Wound care expert Kirsten Marnie, a former tissue viability nurse, said she had seen a range of complications including embedded jewellery and granulomas, an immune response to trauma, infection or jewellery irritation.

"Certain things like embedding - where the piercing is actually embedded within the ear... the person had to go to A&E and have it removed," said Marnie, from Cardiff.

She believes data around cases of infection "goes under the radar", with many cases never reported.

"Sometimes they might go to A&E, report to their GP or may even go to a private dermatologist or they may treat it themselves," she added.