Silver Loft - Sandy, Utah 84070 - The Shops at South Town (South Towne Center)

I'm going to throw this out there as a cautionary tale and hope to save someone else the pain and financial burden I went through as a result of shopping at this store and coming in contact with one of the employees there. A little over a year ago, I had a fresh cartilage piercing that I'd had done at Claire's on a whim. (This was my first mistake.) Piercings at Claire's are done with a gun, and those guns are not easy to sterilize or to keep clean. When you get a cartilage piercing, I now know it should be done with a sterilized needle at a well-reputed piercing parlor. My ear on and off hurt, and a lot of that was due to the backing that Claire's uses on their studs. It poked into my head when I slept on it, causing irritation and pain. I initially went into Silver Loft to purchase some saline solution to clean the piercing. The lady working there at the time convinced me to switch out the jewelry I had in and replace it with a stud that had a ball on the end of it instead. I told her how long I'd had the piercing and that it shouldn't be changed out yet, but she convinced me that she knew what she was doing and to trust her. Against my better judgement, I trusted her. I was in pain as she switched out my Claire's stud for one of hers. For days afterward, I used the solution I'd purchased from Silver Loft to try to cause the inflammation on my ear to go down. Needless to say, it didn't work. I ended up with a nasty infection, and my ear seemed to swallow the stud whole. I did some research online for piercing parlors and contacted Dustin at Iris Piercing. He invited me to come into his studio so he could take a look at my piercing. It wasn't salvageable, and the stud had to be removed. Dustin was very kind and gentle, and didn't make me feel bad for making the poor decisions that had led me to his studio. After Dustin removed the stud (at no charge), I had to immediately make an appointment with an ear doctor. For days afterward, my ear was filled with pus and looked awful and deformed. I wasn't sure that it would ever look normal again. I followed my doctor's directions, and eventually my ear went back to its normal state. Because of the unprofessional advice I received from whom I believe to be the manager of Silver Loft (I have also seen her at several other locations and have had to stop myself from calmly confronting her), I lost my piercing (about $50), invested in jewelry I couldn't wear ($8 or so for the stud from Silver Loft and possibly another $8 for the solution she sold me), plus who knows how much for medical treatment and prescriptions. If you want a helix piercing done, avoid places like Silver Loft and Claire's altogether. Guns shatter your cartilage and your ear may not heal properly. A helix piercing can take months to heal all the way. Claire's and mostly likely Silver Loft will advise you to twist your helix piercing; you should absolutely never do this! Leave it alone, other than using proper cleaning techniques as given by your professional piercer--who will use a sterile needle to pierce your cartilage. I learned a very expensive lesson here, and just want to save someone else from going through the trauma and expense that I did. Please, please, PLEASE do not get a piercing like this on a whim. Do not trust anyone who wants to use a gun or change out your jewelry after only a few weeks to do your piercing. Yes, perhaps there are people out there who have had a cartilage piercing done at Claire's or Silver Loft or similar locations with no problems whatsoever. They were lucky. Don't put yourself at risk.