What actually happens at a piercing appointment, step by step
Most people arriving for a first piercing have read about healing and jewelry and anatomy, and still have no idea what the hour itself is going to be like. That gap is where most of the nerves live.
This page is the hour, step by step. It is written so you can decide before you travel, because from Montreal this is a real trip. We are in Laval, about eleven kilometers from Villeray, fourteen from the Plateau and sixteen from downtown, measured straight line.
You can come with nothing decided
Start here, because it is the part people do not believe.
You are welcome to walk in and ask questions at any time, and we would encourage it if you are still deciding. Bring nothing, decide nothing, and ask whatever you want. Nobody is going to move you toward a chair.
That visit is genuinely useful, because most of what decides a piercing cannot be settled from a photograph. Somebody looking at your actual ear in decent light can tell you in two minutes what it will carry, and you can go away and think about it.
Call before you come, and why
Walk-ins are welcome during mall hours. But if you are making the trip specifically to see us rather than passing through, calling (450) 682 1777 first is never a wasted minute.
The reason is unglamorous. A studio with one person piercing can be with somebody else when you arrive. A call tells you which piercer is in and roughly how long you will wait, and if you have several piercings in mind it lets us set aside the time it actually takes.
It is also the moment to describe what you are thinking of. We will tell you honestly whether it is a placement that usually works, one that leans heavily on anatomy, or one that only a minority of people can carry. We cannot promise anything from a description, but knowing which of those three you are in is usually enough to decide whether to set off.
What to bring
One piece of valid government photo identification. A driver's license, a passport, or a health insurance card carrying your photo. From sixteen you sign the consent form yourself and that is all we need.
A student card does not work, and this is the one that catches people out most often. It has your photo and your name and it feels like identification, but it is not issued by a government and it is not proof of your age. Check before you drive in from the island.
If you are under sixteen, a parent or legal guardian comes in with you and you both bring photo ID. The adult's identification matters as much as yours, because we are confirming that the person consenting is who they say they are, and that does not work if only one of you has anything to show.
Nipple, surface and dermal piercings wait until eighteen, and a parent cannot consent on your behalf for those.
If anything about your paperwork is awkward, call before you come rather than sorting it at the counter. A recent name change, an ID that expired last month, a legal guardian who is not a parent. None of those is automatically a problem and all of them are easier on the phone.
The first few minutes: we look
Before any jewelry leaves its case, somebody looks at the part of you being pierced and says what is possible there.
This is the step that decides most of the outcome and it is the one most often skipped elsewhere. Seventeen of the thirty placements we offer depend on how you are built rather than on skill. A rook needs the ridge inside the upper ear to genuinely stand proud. A daith needs a fold with real depth. An industrial needs two points that line up on the same plane, and on most ears they do not.
Sometimes the answer is that the thing you came in for will not work, and the honest version of that is no, followed by the placement that will. It is a short conversation and it is better to have it standing up than to find out at month eight.
Then we talk about a year from now
What you want done today and what you want your ear to look like in a year are different questions, and the second one changes the first.
If you are planning more than one piercing over time, the order matters. Doing them in the wrong sequence means undoing things later, and it is much easier to plan at the start. If you already have older lobe piercings and want to add to them, bring that up, because existing holes change what will sit well beside them.
This is also where healing gets discussed honestly rather than optimistically. A lobe is about three months. Everything above the lobe is cartilage, which takes six to twelve months. An industrial asks for twelve or more. If that timeline does not fit what is coming up in your life, better to know now.
The marking, which takes longer than the needle
And it should, because the mark is the only part nobody can undo.
Almost everything else is fixable later. Jewelry can be swapped, bad aftercare can be corrected, you can change piercer entirely. Where the hole goes is decided before anything is opened, and on cartilage two millimeters is the difference between a piercing that heals quietly and one that presses against a fold for a year.
You will be asked to sit up and look straight ahead while it is checked, because a face marked while somebody is tilted back is marked against a face nobody else sees. You will be shown the mark in a mirror before anything happens, and if it is not where you want it, say so. Moving a mark costs nothing. Moving a piercing costs a year.
The piercing itself
The shortest part of the appointment.
A single-use sterile needle, by hand, never a gun. What people describe afterwards is a sharp pressure rather than a cut, over in a couple of seconds, followed by a warm throb for a few minutes and then a dull awareness that fades across the day.
Cartilage feels duller and deeper than a lobe and tends to be sore the next morning in a way a lobe is not. That is normal and it is not a sign anything went wrong.
Our piercers rate every placement out of ten for pain, from doing them daily, and those numbers are published rather than kept back. A lobe is two. A helix is five. A daith and a rook are eight. Nobody is going to tell you a nine feels like a two.
The aftercare conversation
Out loud, at the counter, rather than printed on a leaflet you will read in the car.
It takes about ten minutes, and ten minutes is plenty when the person listening is the one who will be doing the cleaning. Cleanse twice a day with sterile saline. Unscented soap in the shower is fine. Do not turn the jewelry, do not pick anything that crusts, and touch it as little as you can stand to.
Ask anything at all here, including the questions people feel silly asking. Nobody in this studio is hearing them for the first time.
Afterwards, and the twenty minutes nobody mentions
The adrenaline is real and it takes about twenty minutes to wear off. Some people feel briefly lightheaded, and being inside a shopping center helps, because there is somewhere to sit down and something to eat.
This is the argument for eating beforehand, which matters more than anything else you can control. Arriving hungry, or straight off a long shift, is the most reliable way to make a routine piercing feel far worse than it is.
The second visit, which is free
There is one more appointment and most people do not know about it until they are told.
Every fresh piercing is fitted with a post slightly longer than the final one, because the tissue swells and a snug bar would be buried by day three. Once the swelling settles, that extra length turns into a problem, because a long post moves more, catches more, and levers the piercing off the angle somebody just took care to get right.
Come back and let us change it. It takes a moment, it is free, and it is the moment somebody who does this every day gets to look at how the piercing actually healed rather than how it looks from outside.
Ask when yours is due before you leave and put it in your calendar that day. People who live nearby can drift in when they remember. Coming from Montreal you cannot, so make it deliberate.
How long to allow
More than you think, and do not book it against a hard deadline.
A single lobe on a decided adult is quick. Anything anatomy-dependent, anything where you are choosing between placements, or anything involving more than one piercing takes longer, and the part that gets compressed when you are in a hurry is the marking. That is the worst possible thing to rush.
If you are bringing a younger teenager, plan for the whole visit to take longer still. There is more conversation, there is paperwork, and there is often a change of mind partway through, which is fine and is exactly why the time exists.
If you are bringing a young person
When a minor comes in, we ask the young person what they want and we listen to how they answer rather than to how the adult answers for them.
That is not a formality. A piercing done to somebody who does not really want it heals badly, because the aftercare never happens and the aftercare is most of the outcome. If the answer is hesitant, the right move is to come back another day, and nobody here will be annoyed about it.
Both languages, and you do not have to choose in advance
The whole appointment happens in English or in French, whichever you would rather. You do not need to pick before you arrive, and you can switch halfway through.
That matters more than it sounds, because the parts that decide the outcome are the anatomy conversation and the aftercare, and neither should happen in the language you can merely get by in.
Bringing an existing piercing with you
If you already have something done elsewhere and it worries you, bring it to the same visit rather than making a separate trip for it.
We will look at it whoever did it and however long ago. Most of what comes back turns out to be one of two things: the jewelry is the wrong length, which is the downsize that never happened, or there is a habit, usually sleeping on it or touching it. Both are quick to fix and neither requires buying anything.
If it is something for a doctor rather than a piercer, we will tell you that plainly instead of selling you a product. That is worth knowing before you spend a month treating the wrong thing.
One thing we will not do
We will not pierce somebody who has arrived unwell, or straight off a long shift with nothing to eat, or who is visibly being talked into it by whoever they came with.
That is not us being difficult on the day. A piercing done in any of those three states heals worse, and the third one heals worst of all, because the aftercare never happens when the person doing it did not want the piercing to begin with.
Prices
We do not publish a list. The jewelry drives most of the cost, so the same placement varies a lot depending on what goes in it, and we run promotions often enough that a published figure would be wrong more often than right. Ask us and you will get a straight answer.
Where we are, and when
Piercings & Co., CF Carrefour Laval, unit J012A, 3003 Boulevard le Carrefour, Laval, Quebec H7T 1C7. Call (450) 682 1777 or write to hello@piercingsandco.com.
Open seven days. Monday to Wednesday 10:00 to 19:00, Thursday and Friday 10:00 to 21:00, Saturday 09:00 to 19:00, Sunday 10:00 to 18:00. The Thursday and Friday evenings are the ones worth knowing about if you are coming after work.
We are not going to quote you a driving time or a transit route, because we have not measured those and an invented figure would be worse than none.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need an appointment, or can I walk in?
You are welcome to walk in during mall hours, and we would encourage it if you are still deciding. If you are making the trip specifically to see us, call (450) 682 1777 first, because a studio with one person piercing can be with somebody else when you arrive.
What do I need to bring?
One piece of valid government photo identification. A driver's license, a passport, or a health insurance card carrying your photo. A student card is not accepted, because it is not issued by a government. Under sixteen, a parent or legal guardian comes with you and you both bring photo ID.
Can I come in without deciding anything first?
Yes, and it is often the better way to start. Bring nothing, decide nothing, and ask whatever you want. Most of what decides a piercing cannot be settled from a photograph, and two minutes of somebody looking at your actual ear tells you more than an evening of reading.
How long does the appointment take?
Longer than the piercing, which is a few seconds. Allow more time than you expect and do not book it against a hard deadline, particularly if you are choosing between placements or bringing a younger teenager. The part that gets rushed when you are in a hurry is the marking, and that is the one thing nobody can undo.
Does it hurt?
Our piercers rate every placement out of ten from doing them daily, and we publish the numbers rather than keeping them back. A lobe is two, a helix five, a daith and a rook eight. The needle itself is a couple of seconds of sharp pressure rather than a cut. Eating beforehand makes more difference than anything else you can control.
Will I have to come back?
Once, for the first jewelry change, and it is free. The original post is fitted long to allow for swelling and needs shortening once that settles, otherwise it starts levering the piercing off its angle. Ask when yours is due before you leave.
What if I change my mind at the counter?
Then you change your mind, and nobody will be annoyed. That applies double to a young person who sounds hesitant. A piercing done to somebody who does not really want it heals badly, because the aftercare never happens.