tattoos and body piercing

What are the risks?

The equipment used in body piercing and tattooing can put you at risk of getting a blood borne virus (BBV) if contaminated with blood. Viruses include:

Hepatitis C: a long term illness affecting your liver. There is no preventative vaccine.
Hepatitis B: a long term illness affecting your liver. A safe, effective vaccine is available.
HIV: the virus that results in the disease known as AIDS. People are infected for life. At the moment, there is no vaccine or cure, but treatments are available.

You will also be at risk of bacterial infections if the body artist doesn't have clean practices and you don't follow the after care instructions. These can also be life threatening.

How do I minimise the risks?

Before choosing a body artist, make sure they can answer yes to ALL the steps on our safety checklist. These steps are designed to make sure your skin and blood don't come into contact with any equipment that has been in contact with anyone else's skin and blood.

If the body artist is professional, they will be happy to show you their safe practices. If they give you a hard time because of your questions or cannot answer yes to all of them, leave and choose another artist.

If you're thinking of getting it done while you're overseas because it's cheaper, you still need to go through the checklist. If the overseas artist can't answer yes to all of your questions, you shouldn't have it done with them.

Can't I just get my friend to do it?

Because you need to get the steps in the checklist 100% right to reduce your risk of infection, you shouldn't let a friend do it or do it yourself. You might save money, but you will increase your risk of infection.

sexual health info