Before choosing your body artist, make sure they can answer YES to ALL of the questions in this checklist.

These questions are designed to reduce the risk of your skin and blood coming into contact with anything that has touched anyone else’s skin or blood. If your body artist cannot answer yes to ALL of these questions, choose another artist. Even if your body artist answers yes to all these questions, you could still be at risk. It is important to think carefully about the risks before making your decision.
 

My body artist:

• can explain to me how they sterilise their equipment and use an autoclave steriliser to sterilise all their equipment
• changes the needle assembly or hand piece after use with another client
  is clean and has a clean and well-lit studio
• washes their hands at the beginning and end of every procedure
• washes their hands whenever they take a break during a procedure
• wears new, single use disposable gloves throughout the procedure and doesn’t touch anything except my skin, the needle, the tattooing machine or the piercing jewellery
• changes gloves whenever they touch anything else
• uses new piercing jewellery only (never recycled piercing jewellery)
• uses new needles, razors and other equipment for skin penetration and throws them out immediately afterwards
  keeps everything that will be used to penetrate my skin in sterile, sealed bags that are opened in front of me
• cleans and disinfects my skin thoroughly before it is penetrated
• cleans their work area between clients
• talks to me about how to care for the tattoo to prevent infection, and provides me with this information in writing so I can take it home
• provides an after-care service so I can have follow-up visits to check the work and get help with any problems.