Silverhand

I’ve had my tongue pierced since secondary school, and over the years I’ve aquired a pretty large range of tongue studs from the Pannier Market and a few other alternative shops in Plymouth. I usually buy three or four studs at a time and am always impressed at how often they have new stuff in.
Since I’ve lived in Cardiff, I haven’t been able to find a store that offers a particularly wide range of body jewellery, and definitely nowhere selling any large amount of tongue studs.
Sadly, this shop is one of the many that haven’t made the grade. I was really excited when I went in and was offered a box of balls and bars to make my own, but there was nothing beyond the very basic and boring in the one small box the girl brought out.
My own personal disappointment aside, there does seem to be quite a bit for other piercings, but compared to other body piercing and alternative stores I’ve been to, Silverhand doesn’t blow me away.

This little gem is located on Cardiff’s Castle Arcade and offers a rather impressive array of body piercing jewellery along with other accessories such as belt buckles, t-​shirts, jackets, beanies and baseball caps, neck chains, bracelets, ties and smoking paraphernalia. They also offer tattoos via their resident tattooist Matt Davies and often feature guest tattooists too.
I often come here to browse the clothing accessories as I only have the one piercing but I am quite particular about what I put in my ear. I was looking for something very specific and I ventured here. I told the gentleman behind the counter what I wanted and seconds later he was tipping out trays onto the counter looking for what I had requested. Fair play, he was looking in the right tray and found exactly what I had asked for and offered me a very reasonable price. I don’t really feel the need to go anywhere else now.

This city centre shop is the organiser behind the annual Cardiff Tattoo Convention, and as you might expect it does tattoos and piercings, and sells a wide range of alternative accessories such as plugs and flesh tunnels — and if like me you don’t really know what these are, this shop probably isn’t for you… just as it’s not really for me.
However, if you’re into body jewellery, they do sell all sorts made of a wide variety of materials, including bone, wood and bamboo, precious stones such as amber and jade, surgical steel, titanium, acrylic and various plastics.
Glancing in through the window, they also have smoking apparatus such as rolling papers, pipes and bongs; belt buckles and alternative clothing; and some other jewellery.