Life in the Time of Coronavirus

The Piercing Shop Owner Who Has No Idea If Her Business Will Survive

A series about how this pandemic affects our lives, our loved ones, our work, and our way of life

Photo illustration. Image sources: Eugenio Marongiu/Getty Images, 4x-image/Getty Images

Life in the Time of Coronavirus is a GEN series where we are interviewing people across the country who have had their lives upended or are experiencing the stress of the unknown.

Starr Ellis, 33, is the owner of Nine Moons Piercing, a body piercing and fine jewelry studio in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. She closed her store on March 13, more than a week before the order from Governor Cuomo closed all nonessential businesses in the state.

We care about our clients a lot. We’re very overly clean, overly friendly, and we just love to make little sparkles. In terms of hygiene, everyone in our studio has various certifications and training programs that we’ve all gone through. We all practice aseptic technique, and we’re all very well versed in PPE (personal protective equipment). So we were already wearing masks, and some of us were wearing goggles.

Unfortunately, not every shop is like mine. A lot of people who have been doing something for a long time start getting very relaxed, or they had bad teachers, or…