Health & Safety

All employees and owners at Immaculate Concept are trained in both Sterilization as well as Blood Borne Pathogens.  Each staff member takes a yearly Blood Borne Pathogens course right before the Calgary Tattoo Convention in August.  Staff training is done by Health Educators www.hlthedu.com who are sponsored by Immaculate Concept to come and teach health courses to area tattooists each year. In addition to yearly courses, one of Immaculate Concept owners has his Sterile Processing Certificate which allows him to work in a hospital sterilization department as he did from 1989-1993.  Below are some of the products Immaculate Concept uses and the reasons behind them.

Single Use Sterile Tattoo & Piercing Needles
All needles are single use and sterile.  They are pre-made, packaged and sterilized by the manufacturer.  Immaculate Concept has on file the sterilization certificates from its needle suppliers.

Single Use Sterile Disposable Tubes
Many of the artist at Immaculate Concept use plastic disposable tubes which are disposed of after each use.

Barricare Petroleum Product
Barricare is used in place of the traditional use of vaseline during Immaculate Concept tattoo procedures.  Barricare is a broad spectrum antimicrobial ointment which protects the clients skin during a tattoo procedure.

Technicare Skin Scrub
Technicare is used to clean the clients skin before all piercing or tattoo procedures.  Technicare is a non staining, non irritating scrub which has a 30 second application effectiveness against many harmful bacteria's including MRSA.  A small amount of technicare is also used in each tattooists rinse bottles.

Sterile Water for Irrigation
Immaculate Concept is one of the first tattoo studios in the world to begin using sterile water for both rinse cups and wash bottles.

Disposable Rinse Bottles
Immaculate Concept is one of the first tattoo studios in the world to utilize a disposable rinse bottle.  Rinse bottles are used by the tattoo artists to wet paper towels before wiping the tattoos of excess ink and body fluids.  Immaculate Concept uses Sterile water bottles as its disposable rinse bottles.  Most studios utilize a refillable rinse bottle which should be autoclaved at least once a week to prevent bacterial growth.  If rinse bottles are not autoclaved on a regular basis, resistant bacterial growth can occur even if a detergent is used in the
water.    By using disposable rinse bottles this danger is eliminated at
Immaculate Concept.

Dedicated Work Clothes
Each employee at Immaculate Concept wears clean dedicated work clothes while tattooing and piercing.  We choose not to wear our street clothes to prevent contaminants entering or leaving the work area.

Disposable Aprons
Each tattooist wears a disposable apron while working to prevent cross contamination from ink and water spills/splashes  between clients.

Equipment Bagging
All equipment that may be touched while tattooing and piercing is wrapped in a plastic barrier and disinfected after each use. This bagging includes tattoo machines, tattoo cords, power supply's, wash bottles etc.

Disposable Pens
Most tattooists at Immaculate Concept will use a pen to draw on the clients skin when working on custom designs and backgrounds.  Artists use either tattooist pens or gentian violet ink pens for drawing on clients skin.  Pens are disposed of after each use.

Cavicide Disinfectant Wipes
These are the same wipes you see at all hospitals and doctors' offices.  We use cavicide wipes to clean all work areas between clients.

Autoclave Sterilization
All sterilizing at Immaculate Concept is done by Steam Autoclave.  Autoclaving is the only acceptable method of tool sterilization at tattoo studios.  All reusable tools such as piercing clamps, tattoo tubes, and neuma tattoo machines are sterilized in this manner at Immaculate Concept.  All tattoo studios should test their autoclave each month by spore testing which is sent to an independent lab for testing.  Immaculate Concept's current spore tests are posted behind the front desk.

Ink Station
Immaculate Concept uses an Ink Station at its studio which each artist dispenses the ink they need for each procedure.  The ink station prevents ink from becoming contaminated as it might do at the work station. Also by having six artists use the same supply of tattoo ink, bottles are used up quickly which prevents them from sitting on the shelf for too long leaving them prone to bacterial growth.