The first time I got my nose pierced about 10 years ago, the gun got stuck. I had it done at a cheesy salon on Commercial Drive; the so-called piercer (really I think he washed hair) had no idea what he was doing, nor the courage to speak above a whisper when trying to get the attention of the woman who ran the place, who happened to be with a client. I sat there in surreal dismay, a piercing gun in my nose, staring up at the nervously-grinning 20-something who was keeping the gun positioned next to my head so as not to rip through my nostril, waiting for the manager to notice the oh-so-inaudible, "Um, Maria? Could you maybe come over here for a sec?" Thankfully, she finally realized what was going on and resentfully grabbed the instrument and detached it from my face. (I eventually let the piercing grow over, having discovered I'm pretty much allergic to anything but gold and being traumatized by the whole event.)

According to the lovely Ben, the honest-to-goodness- real-life-professional-piercer at Adrenaline who did my nose ring last Saturday, this sort of thing happens all the time. Nose piercing via gun can go terribly wrong, causing disfigurement and sometimes requiring reconstructive surgery.

So, Adrenaline does it the old-fashioned way: with a needle. And in all other ways, they seem to be true professionals in the world of piercings and tattoos.

I walked into Adrenaline on 4th Ave in Kits (there's also one downtown) last weekend and was immediately impressed with the service. The shop was packed, but the girl at the front desk made sure to greet me right away. She was super helpful and after selecting my (real gold!) nose ring, I told her I'd be back in 20 minutes as there was a bit of a wait for walk-ins. 

When I returned, I was again made to feel welcome. While I've never found tattoo parlours to be outright surly, their service is often nonchalantly friendly at best. Adrenaline really seems as if they really care about their customers, whether you're hard-core and tattoo-covered or not (I'm not).

I was kind of nervous about getting my nose done. I knew they were going to use a needle, and I imagined that had to hurt way more than a gun. I sort of had this idea that using a needle would be more traumatic to my nose and I'd be all puffed up and sore and freakish-looking. So I was a bit of a chicken, and therefore so grateful that Ben, who did my piercing, turned out to be super friendly, obviously knew what he was doing (it honestly hardly hurt) and meticulous about cleanliness.

And this place is CLEAN. I mean, you kind of assume/expect/hope an establishment of this sort will be clean, but it really was spotless. And both Ben and the girl who helped me initially and then rang me up at the til were manic about sanitation--when the girl noticed my nose had a teeny bit of blood on it, she rushed me back into the room, put on a pair of gloves, took a q-tip out of its individual vacuum-sealed pack and dabbed at my nose ever so gently.

Despite my initial reaction to seeing a tattoo shop in Kits ("Why the heck would try to open a tattoo parlour in Kits? They must totally not get it.") I was super impressed with Adrenaline, where I was treated like a real person and ended up with a very pretty little diamond-shaped stud in my nose, as opposed to a gun.