Whether you're looking to pierce yourself or to start a professional venture, you'll need the right tools and materials to practice safely. Because a sterile needle is only good for one use, kit prices vary widely according to the quantity of needles and jewelry included (these items are usually included in proportion, or packaged together). Most come with basic stainless steel jewelry and needles, while full kits intended for professionals or others who will be piercing regularly should also include forceps, ring pliers and other necessary tools, along with sterilization equipment and gloves. Many starter kits will include instructional manuals and videos which the beginner may find useful.

This said, there are a number of specialty kits meant for use on particular body parts, such as nipple or tongue piercing kits. Depending upon the location, specialized forceps, corks and other tools may be necessary or helpful in the piercing. Navels, for instance, are best pierced with triangular forceps, while round forceps are fine for the tongue. Genital piercings usually require a smaller set entirely. A complete kit might include multiple forceps of different types, but a kit meant particularly for nipple piercing, for example, could cost eighty dollars rather than the several hundred charged for a full starter kit.

A standard starter kit intended for those who might be interested in body piercing but who are not yet experienced might include:

• Instructional books or videos.
• Multiple sterile needle/jewelry packs.
• Triangular, oval (sometimes "round"), and micro forceps, with rubber bands and needle corks.
• Ring pliers.
• Sterile latex gloves, perhaps twenty pairs.
• A marking pen.
• Medical supplies, including: gauze, cloth tape, ointment.
• Sterilization supplies, including: work area paper, alcohol wipes, hard surface disinfectant.
• A medical waste bin.

A starter kit with items like these might run between two and three hundred dollars, depending on the quantity of items included, especially needles and jewelry.

A full kit tends to include more jewelry, more needles, and most importantly, more medical equipment, including some items you might not need every time, but might find useful occasionally. These might include a hemostat (clamp), caliper (for measurement), additional forceps, iodine pads, and other miscellaneous piercing tools and items. A full kit will also include more of everything else and (usually) a greater variety of jewelry of different materials, gauges and styles. Such kits are usually intended for commercial or semi-commercial use, and may run as high as five hundred dollars, but the materials included usually make the cost worthwhile.

You may find it worth your time to hunt down the items included in a commercial piercing kit piecemeal, especially if you want them in bulk. Basic piercing and medical tools are not usually this expensive, but if you do take this route you should be sure to hunt down everything (or nearly everything) you would find in a compiled kit, especially sterilization tools. Find an instructional video and observe the sterilization methods described to you--treat them as gospel. A piercing infection, like any infection, has the potential to be deadly. Treat the piercing process as a worthwhile but thoroughly serious, potentially dangerous pastime. Enjoy yourself, but keep in mind at all times that, as a body artist, your health and that of others is in your hands. With some practice and dedication you might find a fulfilling and safe pastime in the field of body art.