Adorn: Tattoos.Piercing.Jewelry | Portland, OR

OUR SWAG ONLINE!

jessica — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:16:41 +0000

buy it here or come grace us with your presence at the shops!

http://shop.cafepress.com/adorn-body-art

check it out guys – sweatshirts, tees (mens & womens), doggie tees, water bottles – and the best part: we have a variety of original styles and artwork that our artists have designed for the swag.

if you’re not the ordering online type, it’s all available at the shops as well.

Swearing Is F@#S*% Good For You

jessica — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:30:07 +0000

As psychologist Richard Stephens listened to his wife let loose with some unsavory language during the throes of labor, inspiration took hold. So he and some colleagues at Keele University in England conducted an experiment to test whether uttering emotion-laden words can change the amount of pain people feel. Turns out that cussing a blue streak might be a good thing.

Study participants were asked to write down five words – to allow for varying foulness thresholds – that they might say after hitting their thumb with a hammer. “A word someone might find shocking and scandalous is a word someone else might use every day,” Stephens says. They were also asked to come up with words to describe a table.

The 67 undergraduate students each then immersed a hand in frigid water for as long as they could bear, while either swearing or repeating an innocuous word. When people had a swear word for their mantra (popular choices: the s-word, the f-word, and two b-words), they were able to keep a hand in the cold water about 40 seconds longer.

The people who swore also reported less pain after the fact. Swearing increased heart rate in participants, and researchers theorized that the increase might signal the beginning of a fight-or-flight response, which allows the body to tolerate or ignore pain. They published their results in the journal NeuroReport (Aug. 5, 2009).

The study gets past whether swearing should be frowned upon, says Timothy Jay, a psychologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. “When you try to describe swearing in moral terms – is it good or bad – it keeps you from getting at the deeper evolutionary links,” he says. “Where did this come from? Why do we do it?”

- Laura Sanders, excerpted from
Science News (Aug. 1, 2009)

So, no need to apologize if you let out a little cussing during the tattoo/piercing process. It might make you feel better and we certainly won’t be offended!

Piercing Gun v. The Needle by Karen L. Hudson

jessica — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:57:28 +0000

Piercing guns have been used for years in mall and department stores for piercing people of all ages. Today, though, professional body piercers want to see the gun banned. Why?

I talked to a lady (who shall remain nameless) who works in a jewelry boutique at a local mall. She said that she has been doing piercings there now for about 6 months. Her “training” took all of 2 weeks, which consisted of watching others and practicing on a teddy bear. (huh?) Although she claims that in the time she has been piercing she has only gotten one complaint, that does not mean this procedure is entirely safe.

The first concern when it comes to piercing is sterilization. Any kind of procedure which involves contact with blood or bodily fluids requires strict adherence to cross-contamination prevention. Piercing guns are usually made with plastic and cannot be sterilized in an autoclave. Sure, they wipe it with alcohol or antiseptic in between uses, but how sterile is that? It is not unreasonable to guess that in a 2-week training course, these mall piercists are not being taught about infection control and blood-borne pathogens. A quick wipe with a sterile pad is not effective in removing disease-carrying blood.

Some will argue that the piercing gun never comes in contact directly with the customer’s skin. This might be true, but the piercers hands do – if they touch the customers skin and then touch the gun, the gun is now contaminated. Period. And when the gun drives the stud through the flesh, if the skin starts to bleed there is no way of knowing whether or not tiny particles of blood could have been dispersed into the air contaminating everything around it.

But Doesn’t The Gun Hurt Less?

Sterility is just one of the possible problems with gun piercing. Tissue trauma is another. The gun forces a blunt stud through the skin, causing it to literally rip in order to make room for the jewelry. Then, it pinches the back of the jewelry in place snugly against the skin, allowing no way for the new wound to breathe and heal properly. The customer is then told to turn the jewelry a couple times a day, which only further pushes growing bacteria into the wound, causing infection.

True, many customers get pierced with guns and never have any problems with it. But why put yourself at risk when there is a safer, less painful way to go about it?

Why the Needle is So Much Better

In comparison to the two-week training of the mall piercer, a professional body piercer goes through extensive training that can last as long as two or three years. They learn about the human body and how piercings affect the circulatory system. They learn how to avoid hitting nerves that can cause severe pain to the customer. Most importantly, they learn about cross-contamanation prevention and how to properly sterilize their instruments. Anything that touches the customer that cannot be autoclaved is thrown away immediately. Work stations are fully disinfected before and after every piercing procedure.

The piercing process itself is also much safer and less painful than having a blunt stud forced through your skin. A piercing needle is actually hollow and extremely sharp. It slices through the skin, safely pushing the tissue aside to make room for the jewelry to be inserted. That may not sound too appealing, but it is actually a very quick process and the method is virtually painless for most body parts.

The jewelry that is used in professional piercing shops is also much better for you. Barbells and Captive Beads Rings are specially designed to allow removal of dirt and bacteria effectively during the healing process. Allowing for full movement of the jewelry makes it much easier for you to clean it without counter-productively pushing more bacteria into the pierce. The metals that are used in this jewelry are also better for your skin and less likely to cause a reaction. High-grade Surgical Stainless Steel and even Titanium (which is virtually nickel-free) give you the best chances of an infection and reaction-free piercing.

Although it is true that professional piercing prices run higher than those performed in mall stores, why put a price on your safety and well-being? The quality and personalized service you receive by going to a professional are certainly worth a few extra dollars. These trained professionals are also happy to follow up with you should you have any questions or complications. Your mall piercer might offer their opinion on how to treat an infection, but who do you think will be more qualified to help you? The answer is obvious.

Needless to say, use of the needle for piercings is less painful, less traumatic, and much safer to the customer. How does this apply to piercings on children? As a concerned mother of two girls, I asked a few professional piercists their opinion. Even I did not realize that in many states it is allowable for children to be pierced in a professional studio. Although the age of consent is much higher for tattoos, most children can get their ears pierced professionally as long as a parent or guardian is present and signs the paperwork.

Piercing Guns v. The Needle by Karen L. Hudson

Do you have artwork you’d like us to display in our lobby?

jessica — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:08:38 +0000

We need new artwork to display/sell in our lobby. Things to hang on walls. Submit pictures of your work for our consideration and decorate our lobby!

Send us an email to questions@adornbodyart.com complete with your name and photos of your work to be eligible – thanks guys, we can’t wait to see what you do!

a Piercing Service Announcement

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:30:04 +0000

brought to you by Adorn

Lately we’ve been seeing an quite a few clients who have allowed simple easy problems to snowball into horrendous gnarly messes for which there is little to no hope of escape without permanent disfigurement.

We don’t care if you price shopped at some no talent shop or got your piercing on vacation in Venezuela… If at first you don’t succeed with your piercing…contact the PRO’S for some top quality trouble shooting!

The lesson here is: SOONER is BETTER!

We’d rather see you and tell you that your piercing is normal and you are neurotic than have you out there growing a baby head sized keloid off your helix piercing or ignoring the fact that your nipple is warping into an unsavory shape.

So bring us your bruised and battered piercings with your cheap Asian junk shop jewelry and let us make you whole again!

Welcome to the Adorn Blog!

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:12:14 +0000

and it’s about time.