Bloom Body Art - Tampa — Local services in Tampa

I want to start this off by saying I have never written a review for any business or even felt the need to, but this experience was extremely uncomfortable. My friend, her mother, and I went into the shop to each get a piercing. I am white, but my friend and her mother are both hispanic and her mom doesn't speak English well but is able to understand most of it. We were viewing the jewelry and asking questions to the lady, I believe I heard another worker call her Cass. She took the jewelry out for her mom to view and my friend was translating her questions or any comments that she didn't understand, which was not an issue at all. Her mom picked up the little stand that each piece was on and Cass asked her not to pick the thing up, to which she didn't understand fully. She continued to touch the stand and turn it around to look at the backs of the pieces and Cass frantically said, borderline yelled, "I said do not pick up the tray", to which we felt extremely uncomfortable because it was very aggressive. The reason for her not wanting us to pick up the tray is so they do not fall out of their place, which we understood, but her mom was just looking at the back and turning it around. Cass was visibly shaking after that incident, kind of indicating her anger, which felt extremely unreasonable. I continued to ask questions and she responded extremely rude and condescending, and interrupted me a few time with, "as I was saying" in a rude manner. I was simply asking if the pieces shown are just the tops that are screwed into a backing because they were short posts and she was getting very rude. I am not confrontational at all, but I almost said to her that she didn't need to be so rude, because it was that bad. I wish I did say something because there was no reason for any of it. We picked out jewelry to which our total was over $680 combined, for three piercings.

As we went into the room the piercer, Amber, seemed really friendly. Everything was going fine but she started to make little comments about our conversations that were in Spanish and asking slightly odd questions. She repeated over ten times, " I wouldn't mess with you mom", and "She's scary", while her mom was barely even speaking, and it just felt weird the amount of times she repeated it. Anytime one of us would talk to each other she'd either comment on something we say, which was fine to an extent, or she would actually say "What?" and wait for a response, which we felt was extremely intrusive. She also made some comments to my friend while she was getting pierced like "When you mom says this word or phrase, I know you run.", to which I don't believe she was trying to relate because she did not know Spanish to our knowledge considering she couldn't understand any conversations in Spanish. When I was getting pierced she said to me kind of quietly (I wasn't initiating any conversations), "Yeah, I only got like one word out of that too.", referring to the conversations my friend's family was having privately, knowing I also do not speak Spanish. Amber was also cursing every other word while we had a 6 year old with us, to which the 6 year old asked me multiple times privately, "Why is she saying so many bad words?", which was extremely unprofessional. I'm not trying to make any assumptions about these people's character, but it made all of us extremely uncomfortable, especially considering the amount of money we spent there, and we should have left before any services took place. This saddens me because the quality of their work was great, the shop is beautiful, and the reviews...

The piercer Alan was excellent, very professional, personal and kind, one of the best if not best piercer I have had. He is the only reason I am giving 3 stars and not 1. It is decorated very cute and trendy and they have a ton of beautiful jewelry displayed. It’s almost too hard to pick something out. The reason they aren’t 5 stars was the service at the counter, the rude comment about my ears and slight deceptive sales practices about the jewelry. I would have expected much better clarification and not such inflated pricing for gold jewelry that only the front piece is gold, not the posts or the backings. I paid $380 for just the 3 small post earrings, $50 for the cartilage piercing and they charge a 3% convenience fee I am assuming for using a credit card, not sure what that was for. I asked the girl if the jewelry was real gold and flat backs. The girl replied yes and proceeded to point and tell me that these were 14k, these were 18k, these were white gold, etc. I said “great, bc I have been shopping for solid gold flat backs earrings online for sometime but wasn’t sure what sizes to order and wanted to see in person first”. We decided to look at some smaller bead clusters and she took them out for me to look in front of the mirror, the post was titanium and not gold and I said “oh the post is not gold?” She said “no the posts are surgical titanium”. I guess I should not have assumed that the backs were gold although I said I was looking for gold flat backs TWICE and she never corrected me that the backs are titanium as well and are balls not flat backs. After I selected two small gold bead cluster earrings and a small opal for a cartilage piercing, Alan pierced my ear, and put the other two earrings in for me. When I was checking out and Alan was giving her the measurements of the posts he used, she said “oh wow she has big little ears” with a surprised look. I was honestly so shocked that she commented on my ear thickness or whatever you would call it. Super unprofessional on her part and I think it was the store manager, I’m not sure. Shoulder length platinum type hair. When I went back in two weeks to get the posts resized, Alan but a titanium back on my cartilage piercing but the other two remained titanium balls. I am still disappointed that they are not gold backings especially being that I have several carts online with solid gold earrings, posts and backings that are similar or less priced that the three I bought. But it is what it is. Make sure you understand what you are buying. And I hope she learns to not comment on...

Matt is a wonderful piercer! When I first walked in I wasn’t really sure what type of piercings I wanted to get done other than the fact that I wanted some ear piercings. Matt helped give me some ideas of the areas of my ear that would be best for piercings—my helix and/or conch—based on my ear’s anatomy. Then he told me to look through his vast, beautiful collection of jewelry to see if anything jumped out at me. He was completely nice, understanding, and patient while helping me figure out what jewelry I wanted. Not only is Matt extremely nice and helpful, so is his entire staff. All of which gave me suggestions and their opinions on what they thought would look best on me. When I finally made up my mind about what jewelry I wanted he completely sterilized the jewelry, his equipment, and my ear before piercing it. I could tell that making sure everything was sterile was a big deal to Matt. He also helped make the piercing experience less painful and made a few jokes to ease my nerves. Matt’s personality is very positive, nice, caring, humble, patient, and friendly. His behavior makes it feel as though you have been friends for years. I found it extremely comforting to know that Matt put his customers interests before his own; making sure that his customers get what is best for them rather than what will make him the most money. After he pierced my ear he went in detail about how to maintain and take care of my new piercings. He also told me to come back in a month for a free check up. The best part was getting candy at the end (just like going to the doctor😂). While we were paying we heard him explaining to another customer why they don’t do belly button piercings if you are under 18; he said it was because they want the piercing to be something you will have in the long run, which those under 18 may end up not wanting in the future and at that age your belly button’s anatomy is still changing with growth which may negatively effect the piercing. Matt truely cares for his customers and I will definitely be...