Sterilizing with a real autoclave vs. boiling water for 20 minutes is no contest after I got a nasty infection from the boiling method.

I used to swear by the boiling water trick for my piercing tools until a 3-day fever and a $200 ER visit proved the $150 secondhand autoclave was worth every penny.

2 comments

2 Comments

piper91224d ago

Oh man, that sounds brutal. Three days with a fever from a piercing infection is no joke, I've seen people end up with sepsis from less. What exactly went wrong with your boiling method that caused the infection to get that bad? Like, were you just using tap water or was it something else?

reesemiller24d ago

Wait... you used tap water? @piper912, please tell me you didn't just run hot tap water over it. That's not even close to boiling. Tap water has all sorts of stuff in it, heavy metals, chlorine, who knows what else. I've seen people use a microwave mug for sterilization too, which is basically just warm water with whatever bacteria survived. You gotta actually boil the jewelry in a pot for a solid 10 minutes. Anything less and you're basically asking for trouble.