Today I got an interesting email from an aspiring piercer:

My name is Jordan and I was an apprentice up until a few days ago. I got your book and started reading "How To Choose A Piercer" and the piercing and aftercare techniques and realized that the person that I was learning from was not a skilled piercer. He was recommending baby shampoo as his sole aftercare product! I looked up the ingredients and among fragrances and surfactants were other irritants that were both genotoxic and cytotoxic!

So I wanted to thank you because in reading the book twice I increased my knowledge tenfold! My girlfriend and I literally read your book together in bed :) Also the other day I was on the old Rings of Desire site from your old studio in New Orleans. And saw that you used to sell autographed posters? Where was I?!? haha :) I'd love an autographed picture or poster!

Would Love to hear from you soon!

Hi Jordan,

Thanks for your email.

I'm so glad to hear that my book has proven to be helpful to you, and that you took the time to let me know about it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad piercers out there, and plenty of them are taking on apprentices to create yet more untrained, unskilled practitioners. My hope is that my book will help to elevate the whole industry. By creating educated consumers, it helps put those hacks out of business.

I didn't imagine it was going to be the kind of book couples read in bed together!  That kind of feedback sure puts a big smile on my face.

You can get an autographed poster by following the instructions on this page.

Also, I have additional resources at the bottom of that page that will be helpful to you as an aspiring piercers.

Thanks for writing, Elayne