Hygiene conditions

Hygiene conditions in a piercing & tattoo studio should be at the same level as those in hospitals (although Croatian hospitals might not be the best example) i.e. to those in medical clinics. Due to the lack of legal regulation for the piercing profession, there are no officially prescribed conditions that studios must meet. This puts the client in a difficult position, as they must do their own research to understand what to look out for during a piercing procedure. Since 2020, Croatia has required all tattoo and piercing studio employees to complete a basic hygiene certification course.

All instruments used during piercing must be single-use or sterile. Any non-disposable tools must be cleaned after each use (both manually and in an ultrasonic cleaner), disinfected, protected with an anti-corrosion agent (the same type used for surgical instruments), sealed in sterilization pouches, and then sterilized. After sterilization, the sealed instruments must be stored in a clean, dry environment, protected from contamination or damage to the packaging, and opened immediately before use on the client.

Sterilization is performed in an autoclave (steam sterilizer) under 2 bars of pressure, at a temperature of 134°C, for 30 minutes. This method of sterilization is the only one suitable for use in hospitals — and therefore also in professional tattoo and piercing studios.

At Octopus, we use three autoclaves: two Class B autoclaves, model Kronos B23 by the Italian manufacturer Newmed (18L and 23L), and the Enbio S autoclave by the Swiss manufacturer Enbio Group AG.
Each sterilization cycle is monitored using indicators on the sterilization pouches—if the process is successful, the indicator changes color from pink to brown. During the sterilization cycle, the Kronos autoclave prints a sterilization report, while with the Enbio autoclave, reports are stored in the device’s internal memory.
In addition, we perform an annual validation of the autoclaves by sterilizing bacterial spores provided by the Andrija Štampar Institute of Public Health.

Used needles are disposed of in specialized infectious waste containers, which are collected monthly by Remondis Medison, a company authorized for the disposal of infectious medical waste.

The piercing jewelry we use as initial is made of:

• High-quality titanium, grade Ti6AL-4V ELI, ASTM F136
• Implant-grade steel, grade SS316L (ASTM F138, ISO 5832-1)
• biocompatible plastic (Bioplast®)

You can read more about jewelry materials here.

Jewelry that is inserted during piercing is sterilized in an autoclave. To change jewelry for healed piercings, the jewelry does not have to be sterile, but it must be disinfected.