Our Sterility Guidelines
We as a studio operate to the highest possible standards of hygiene – what we consider to be safe operating levels are above and beyond Health & Safety requirements and are based on the latest medical information.
We operate to the levels required by the APP (Association of Professional Body Piercers); we are not APP members because we will pierce people under 18 years of age with parental consent.
The latest guidelines from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health recommend the use of irrigated water in an autoclave as it is bacteria-free; we have sourced and now use this water despite the extra cost.
At Kalima we use a new needle per client and EEC-compliant piercing jewellery. All jewellery sold for retail or used for piercing is clinically sterilised in seperate equipment to piercing tools; tools (clamps) are rigorously sterilised between customers.
For tattooing we use new, individually pre-sterilized needles for each client and these are disposed of at the end of each tattoo session. All ‘grips and tips’ (parts of the tattoo gun that come in contact with ink and blood) are rigorously cleaned and sterilized to the highest hospital standards.
Grips and tips are soaked in a medical solution to help remove matter after use. They are then cleaned by hand using specialist brushes to again remove any debris.
Next they are ultrasoniced in an industrial ultrasonic bath (far more powerful than standard) for 1 1/2 hrs. They are then cold-sterilized and individually bagged and sterilized in a vacuum autoclave using sterile water.
Sterility Procedure
Our piercing sterility procedure is as follows:
- All tools are pre-soaked in a medical cleaning solution which is designed to remove human matter (skin, saliva, sweat etc) from medical instruments.
- We then ultrasonic all instruments for 30 minutes (ultrasonic manufacturers recommend 15) in an industrial ultrasonic cleaner. An ultrasonic cleaner removes all loose matter from tools by creating thousands or bubbles that bombard the surface and encase the loose matter in the detergent, when it will sink to the bottom of the cleaner.
- The tools are then placed in a cold sterilising solution. This is designed to sterilise sensitive medical instruments that would be damaged by the heat, steam or pressure of an autoclave.
- Finally the tools are placed in special medical bags that allow them to be sterilised inside: This will keep them sterile for up to five years if necessary.
- The bagged tools are then autoclaved.
Autoclaves & Sterility Equipment
An autoclave is a sterilising machine that kills all micro-organisms by the use of heat / steam / pressure.There are many types of autoclave, ours is one of the best – a Prestige Medical Century 2 Vacuum Autoclave. Vacuum autoclaves are the latest development in the medical industry. All air is pumped out of the autoclave guaranteeing total sterilisation.
NB Our cold sterilising fluid is a quality product that does not contain aldehydes, now thought to be carcinogenic. Cheaper cold sterilising fluids still contain these.
As well as all tools being rigorously sterilised, all surfaces in the studio are cleaned regularly throughout the day with medical surface cleaners designed to kill TB, Hepatitis and HIV.
Due to our views on sterility we have a close working relationship with the Health Authority and inform them of any new procedures and information. This is why we can offer the range of modifications that we do.
They are more than happy with our sterility and feel that we operate ‘above and beyond the Health & Safety requirements’ for a body piercing studio.
We use silicone for implants and have a special autoclave for silicone. Information from US suppliers, a major source for medical silicone, states that silicone needs to be autoclaved for a longer period than most British-manufactured autoclave cycles operate on. We therefore purchased an autoclave that runs the appropriate cycles to guarantee that the silicone is correctly sterilized.