Depending upon what you plan on piercing will dictate what kind of piercing supplies you will need. If it's just your year that you plan on piercing, you can pick up a piercing kit at any local mall, which has a surgical steel earing, as well as a single shot piercing gun. And the vast majority of cases piercing can be cleansed with some rubbing alcohol, and if anything else is necessary, the piercing kit will more than likely instruct you on what is needed.

If it's other body parts that you plan on getting pierced, whether nipple, eyebrow, genitals or navel, you should number one, have a high tolerance for pain, and number two, haven't done by a professional instead of using your own piercing supplies.

Professional piercers will be equipped with the piercing supplies that you will need. The majority of piercings are not done with a gun but with a needle and in some cases with a clamp. It is a very simple procedure when the needle is pushed through the skin and a barbell is either attached to the end of the needle, or slid in behind the needle and pulled in to the piercing.

A good piercer should have all of the piercing supplies that are needed to do a proper, sterile cleaning, as well as those for you to care for your piercing and prevent infection afterwards. Most piercing supplies will include an autoclave for the all-important step of sterilizing the needles. Kids will also include needles with various gages, and sanitary wipes, and an assortment of other tools that are necessary to get the job done properly.

Your piercer should also provide you with a guideline to cleaning your piercing, a timetable of recovery time, and piercing supplies to properly care for your skin. When I got my nipples pierced they gave me a sterilizing solution to keep the piercing clean, another rub with aloe in it to protect the wound from infection, and sea salt and cups to soak it in.

In addition to these piercing supplies, I was given detailed and shark shines that spelled out exactly what I needed to do to take care of my piercing. The expected recovery time in my case was two to three months. Fortunately for me the piercing supplies and instructions that came with were more than up to the challenge.

They did kind of scare me a bit, with all the talk of risks of infection and oozing and crusting, lovely thoughts I know, but as it turned out the recovery was a snap. I kept it clean with the piercing supplies, so except for the fact that it was a little uncomfortable, nothing was all that inconvenient about it the entire process.