Hygiene Practices and Equipment at Mauve
At Mauve, we take every precaution to ensure that our clients will have their piercing performed using the safest and most hygienic practices. There are many similarities in the equipment and chemicals that we use that would be found in an optical surgeon’s or dentist’s office.
Daily Cleaning
Our studio is cleaned every day with an assortment of disinfectants according to their intended use and the area being cleaned. We disinfect our doorknobs, display case, client check out area, and card payment keypad multiple times a day.
Surface Disinfectant
Our surface disinfectant of choice is Optim 33 TB which is proven to be one of the top accelerated hydrogen peroxide products on the market. Before and after piercings or jewelry changes, this product is used on our mayo stands and massage tables (which have a protective vinyl covering). We will use this product on other surfaces throughout the studio when it is necessary. It’s properties are:
- 1 minute tuberculocidal, bactericidal, virucidal contact time
- 3 minute fungicidal contact time
- 30-second sanitizer for your environmental surface
Sterile Gloves
Clean examination gloves are used for all setup and marking duties as well as some jewelry changes. Single-use sterile gloves are used for all piercings and may be used for some jewelry changes.
Piercing Needles
All piercing needles are single-use. We only use the best, sharpest needles available in the world that have a silicone or Teflon coating which makes them much gentler to be pierced with.
Tools
If tools are used during the piercing or jewelry change procedure that is not either disposed of or given to the client there is a cleaning protocol in place to ensure safety. The tools are cleaned on the procedure stand to remove all visible debris, the tool is placed in a container for biohazardous tools, sprayed with an enzymatic cleaning foam, placed in an ultrasonic cleaner, air dried, and sterilized. The tools are sterilized again before they are used on a client.
Sterilizer, Spore Tests, and Ultrasonic Cleaner
We use a Statim 2000 G4 for our primary sterilizer and a Statim 5000 as our backup. These sterilizers are also used in the optical surgery industry for their efficacy at sterilizing small hollow instruments as well as in the dental industry due to their speed.
Our primary sterilizer is tested every week with a spore test that is sent to an independent laboratory to ensure that it is working correctly. With each sterilization cycle, a class 5 indicator (integrator) is used to measure heat, pressure, steam, and time. While the software produces a report with this information, we like to use additional controls to ensure our clients’ safety.
Our ultrasonic cleaner is a Sweepzone that automatically adjusts to different conditions to create uniform cleaning power, eliminating hot spots and weak areas.