Willow Glen Resident

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Pierce Ink owner helped change local piercing laws

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

When Sharrin Spector began piercing people for a living, she thought she'd do it for a few years until the next thing came around. Now in her 40s, Spector is still walking clients through the process, giving them custom piercings.

This year marked Pierce Ink's 15th anniversary, a milestone for any business.

"I feel really honored to be in a moment of change in a person's life," she says, "regardless if they realize it right then."

The 48 Race St. address is the third for the shop, originally located on S. First Street and then on Park Avenue, but it's this location that finally felt like home.

"The initial idea I had for this Pierce Ink is that it would be a place for people come in and sit down, work with an artist to design their piece," Spector says. "I created this place to be like a high end salon rather than a shop."

The blue walls and aquatic theme are a far cry from what most tattoo and piercing shops look like.

"It's a place that's comfortable for you to look at stuff as well as for your kids," she says. "That's why we moved into this neighborhood. It has an energy of both arts and families."

Pierce Ink is the only female-owned shop in Santa Clara County and the oldest full-service body modification shop in San Jose.

Spector's biggest accomplishment to date is her role in securing minimum guidelines for tattoo and piercing shops in Santa Clara County.

"I always thought body modification should be where art meets precision," she says.

In the past, anyone could call himself or herself a tattooer or piercer, she says.

"They didn't need to have an education," Spector says. " They didn't need an autoclave for their equipment. Now, we've upped the playing field. We gotta have minimum standards. We now are used as a model shop."

Spector, originally from Seattle, was shocked when she moved to California and realized there were no minimum standards for health and safety in the body modification industry. She spent 15 years working with the California Department of Environmental Health before changing her approach and focusing on the county instead.

"We had the minimums enacted last year," she says.

The new standards, which require body modification artists to pass a test covering safety and bloodbourn pathogens, are not enough, she says.

One particular area that still makes Spector cringe is the mall piercing stations where many youths get their first ear piercings.

"A piercing gun is non-autoclavable--it cannot be sterilized between uses," Spector says. "Going to a mall, you're exposing yourself or your child to a variety of diseases like hepatitis."

These stations are allowed to use the guns because the actual piercing is done with sterile earrings, not the gun, but particulates from the actual piercing can adhere to the gun, she says.

Along with the lack of sterilization, Spector says lack of experience can make for a bad piercing experience.

"These people also aren't the most experienced," she says. "They get half an hour of training with Styrofoam. You don't get an experienced professional."

All of Spector's in-house piercers and tattoo artists are required to have completed both education as well as apprenticeships before they can pierce or tattoo a client.

"We adhere to the highest standards," she says. "We are friendly people, and no matter what you get, whether it takes 30 seconds or 30 hours, we still do the best work we can do."

The shop also hosts various educational classes for piercers around the country in its back room.

The shop's clientele also sets Pierce Ink apart, Spector says.

"The clientele has gotten older, more sophisticated and educated," she says.

Zack, resident tattoo artist at the shop for five years, says customers coming in for tattoos have also changed.

"They run the gamut from the homeless guy with an extra couple of bucks to the CEO of a local company," he says. "You never know who's going to walk in through that door. Tattoos and piercings are more socially accepted. People aren't so quick to judge anymore."

Pierce Ink is located at 48 Race St. For more information, call 408.280.6696 or visit www.pierce ink.com.