1. You really DO get what you pay for.
We're all concerned with saving a buck, but when it comes to tattoo work, you should NOT skimp and try to find the best deal. I can't even tell you the sheer number of tattoo artists I have spoken with who tell me about people that come into a tattoo shop and are "price shopping." These people want to get the most bang for their buck and they usually end up woefully disappointed when their tattoo comes out looking cheap. I personally have three pieces that were done while price shopping and they ALL have required a few hundred dollars to get them fixed by another, more experienced artist.
This isn't to say that a newbie artist can't do good work. I have one tattoo done by a newbie artist that came out very well. But by and large, what you should look for when you're shopping tattoo parlors is the work. You want to see a portfolio full of pictures of art that they have done and in the body placement you want. If you want a cheap tattoo, you're going to get a cheap tattoo. And they are permanent too! Fixing them costs hundreds of dollars, and that's assuming that all that happens is that you get a cheap looking tattoo. In the worst case scenario, you could wind up with significant scarring on your tattoo. You could wind up with an infection in your tattoo which will forever damage it. My ankle tattoo was done while price shopping and it ended up getting severely infected, to the point where I wound up in the doctors office with a major fever and required massive antibiotics to get it under control. But if you want a well done piece of body art that you will be proud of for decades to come, you need to think less about cost and more about the artists themselves.2. Getting a tattoo doesn't really hurt. At least not as bad as you think it will hurt.
Someone once told me that if tattoos really hurt, people wouldn't keep getting them. But when I was new to the process, I was TERRIFIED of the pain and everyone around me kept making it out to be this hugely horrible pain. It doesn't hurt. It's obviously not going to feel like rubbing bunny fur on your skin, but it's not this agonizing pain either. More than anything, it's annoying but it doesn't really hurt. That said, it also depends on the placement of the tattoo.
I have seven tattoos and of those seven, only two actually hurt: My lower spine and my ribs. I have been told that the knees, the elbows, and anywhere that your body bends hurts as well, but I wouldn't know anything about that personally. For me, though, I was a BEAST through my tattoos and I get compliments from my tattoo artists that I might be screaming and crying and vocalizing but I'm impossibly still and I handled it better than other people who had similar work done. The picture to the left of this text is me getting my 6th piece (my second custom job) tattooed onto my chest and ribcage. It's weird though. I looked like I'd been sliced open with a scalpel and I had to stop more than a few times so I could gather my wits, but you could breathe through the pain as long as you could focus on something else and just stare at it. It wasn't the end of the world if you had to stop for a minute to take a deep breath. There are pictures of me taking a break mid-tattoo and everyone who has seen them said I looked like I was about to stab someone. I wasn't. But it didn't feel too great. That said, my whole goal with my tattoos was to get ink in painful places. Once I had my first taste of ink, I wanted more and more until I found something that hurt. That's why I have a lower back tattoo and a rib tattoo. I likely won't ever get my elbows or knees done, but the ribs was pretty beastly. And in about 4 months, my rib tattoo will be done and I'll be able to think about getting more work in painful places... like the top of my foot.3. There are as many different after-care instructions as there are tattoo artists. And all of them are right.
This one sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it? How to care for your new tattoo is really one of those open to interpretation things though. Some artists will tell you to leave the bandage on for 12-24 hours. Some will say take it off and let it breathe as soon as you get home. Some will tell you to use A&D ointment twice a day for a week. Others say to use a scent-free lotion every 2 hours. Some will say no submerging your new ink for a week.
Others will tell you that it's fine to bathe after 24 hours. Really, they're all right. There are no hard and fast rules for how to care for your tattoo, so what you have to do is listen to your individual artist until you find a system that works. You have to keep in mind that a tattoo IS a wound, similar to scraping your knee or getting a sunburn. Therefore you want to make sure to keep it clean and protect it for a few days at least until the scab starts to form.For me, what I do is that I start about a week before the work by putting lotion on the area where I will be getting the work done every 12 hours. Then I will leave the bandage on until I get home. I take it off and shower, making sure to wash the tattoo with Provon medicated lotion soap because it is, after all, a wound. I will get out of the shower and apply A&D right out of the shower. 12 hours later, I wash it with Provon again and apply more A&D. The next day, I start applying Eucerin Moisturizing Cream (I use the cream because of my psoriasis and how it dries out my skin severely) every 4-6 hours until a scab forms. Then I apply Eucerin as needed (when my skin feels dry - and your tattoo WILL feel like a really bad sunburn). You have to wash it at LEAST every day until it's all healed. I have psoriasis so my skin tends to go into psycho attack mode when I get tattoo work done which can damage my tattoo (and does - it's damaged at least 2 of my tattoos). Fortunately my artist has a lot of experience with psoriasis so she won't push my skin to the point where it starts violently revolting. There are (expensive) specialty goos out on the market but really all you need is a good alcohol free lotion, a tube of A&D, and some antibacterial soap. Oh and just so you know, you'll KNOW your lotion has alcohol in it the minute you try applying it to your fresh tattoo. With my rib tattoo, I was short on lotion so I borrowed some from my cube neighbor and it looked scent free so I didn't think it would hurt to borrow some. Almost as soon as my hand touched my tattoo, it felt like I had just poured napalm on my already-massively-in-pain ribcage. I literally screamed and darted off to the bathroom to wash it off.
4. There ARE things you can do that will make getting your tattoo a heck of a lot easier
Whenever people ask me if I have any advice for what to do before getting a tattoo, I always tell them the following:
* Eat a big meal about 30 minutes before going under the needle.
This makes your stomach a heck of a lot less queasy and it raises your blood sugar. The process of getting a tattoo raises your adrenaline and endorphin levels, which can DESTROY your blood sugar levels. People pass out getting tattoos all the time and it's because the tattooing process dramatically lowers your blood sugar. But if you eat a heavy meal just before, you can avoid that.* Get plenty of rest the night before. I know you're excited to get a tattoo, but try to get a full 8-10 hours the night before, otherwise your pain tolerance is going to be dramatically lowered.
* While you're eating that big meal before your tattoo appointment, take 2 ibuprofen or 2 aspirin. When you get a tattoo, the endorphin rush takes about 30 minutes to kick in so the ibuprofen is there to get you through to the rush. It also thins your blood so you bleed less while getting the tattoo. And for those of us who are pain junkies, if we're getting tattooed in an unusually painful place, it helps to take a couple of Xanax with your aspirin.
* DO NOT GET DRUNK! People think that drunk means they will feel no pain but alcohol in your bloodstream also means that you will bleed more and move around more and be generally a more difficult customer. That said, I will not lie to you and say I have been completely 100% lucid for all of my tattoos. For 6 of my seven, yes - I was 100% Lucid and present. But about halfway through my bird, I got up off the table, and took 2 shots of Vodka. I was going to walk out half done if I hadn't and my artist was like, "You might want to consider some liquid courage at this point." So we went ahead with drugging me stupid and I just didn't drive myself home. I'm going to be finishing the bird in December and have already heard the jokes about how I need a designated driver before I can schedule it.
5. DO NOT - under ANY circumstances - MOVE OR FLINCH.
See, tattooing is permanent and what you DON'T want are scribbled lines. STAY STILL. Scream, cry out, make faces, but DO NOT MOVE. In other words, do not be this lady:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5MPJnwJrfE]
6. You WILL want more when you are done.
I have NEVER met anyone in my entire life who had a tattoo and didn't have ideas for 10 others. They're like Pringles - you can't have just one. But here's the thing I want all you rookie tattoo virgins to know - DO NOT GET SOMETHING POPULAR. What you want to get is a symbol, be that a symbol of you and your life or a symbol of the moment. Don't get something because it's pretty and all your friends have similar tattoos. Get something that has a bit of substance behind it. You WILL live to regret that tribal tattoo when it's no longer en vogue.
I have one cousin who recently got a tribal armband and when I saw it, my first thought was "I thought we were past that fad..." My second thought was that it's totally trashy and makes her look like a cheap whore or wicked party girl. My final thought was, "She's going to live to regret that tattoo." I have another cousin with pirate flags on her chest. She looks cheap and trashy too. In fact, you can tell that all of HER tattoos were done while price shopping so they all look cheap and trashy. But that aside, she got three pirate tattoos in the middle of the pirate tattoo fad. And she will live to regret them.
Now, I am totally NOT against spontaneous flash tattoos in the slightest. Don't misunderstand me. I am totally on board with commemorating a moment in time with a tattoo. My foot tattoo is going to be a "moment commemoration." It's going to commemorate the first time I went on a real vacation and spent a week in near total solitude with my favorite "little sister." Garfield commemorates a moment in time. Elmo commemorates a moment in time. The Trek tattoo commemorates a moment in time. While I can assign a deeper meaning to all of these tattoos and indeed, I am hesitant to cover them up because there IS such a deeper meaning associated with them, the plain and simple fact is that they were all flash tattoos that I got in a moment in time so I would remember that moment.
But getting a "moment" tattoo and getting a "fad" tattoo are two separate things. Fad tattoos eventually fall out of style. And when you're looking back on your skin at 50, 60, or even 80, are you going to want to say to someone asking you to tell the stories of your tattoos, "I was young and dumb when I got that... there's no meaning behind it." I look at my Elmo and I can tell you a WICKED story about a night of heavy drinking with my then-fiance (now ex-husband) and my best guy friend of all time when I was a sophomore in college and had JUST moved to Las Vegas (and indeed, all three of us got inked that night). The same goes for my other 2 flash tattoos. They were moments frozen in time for me. Some of my tattoos tell the greater story of my life... some of them are incredibly symbolic and deeply meaningful. Some of them commemorate a moment in time that I wanted to remember for the rest of my life. And that's not what I'm against. What I'm against are people who get tattoos because they're "pretty" or "fun." A tattoo is a piece of art that you will have with you for the rest of your life. Yes, it is meant to be pretty. I think that if you got an ugly tattoo, you fell victim to crime number one on this blog (price shopping). And I'll even grant you that some people get tattoos that are JUST really nice pieces of art. But I think that - at the end of the day - you want a tattoo that will hold some meaning for you 10, 15 or 40 years down the road.
I shutter to think about what all the girls my age are now saying about the tribal "tramp stamps" and the nautical stars they got. And if my cousin is any indication, tribal armbands are back now too. Either that or she's stuck in 1998 when they WERE the big rage of the day. And really, either scenario makes me laugh. I have friends with tribal armbands and they all tell me, "I was young and dumb..." Many of them are now starting to cover up or remove these horrendous tattoo fad decisions and it's really just not worth it. Just be aware of tattoo fads and don't give in. I shutter to think about all the people getting fingerstaches, inner lip tattoos, and belly button tattoos (where your belly button is some animals rectum - donkey and cats are the leaders in this area) and how do they plan qualifying their ink to future generations. There's a statistic that says that 50% of the tattoos done today will end up covered up or lasered off. Both options can cost hundreds of dollars, hours of torturous pain, and much more grief than just not getting the damn tattoo in the first place. It's not a contest. You don't need to have more ink than me and I don't need more ink than you. I have the right number of tattoos for me and when I start to feel like a part of my body is too naked, I will save up and get another tattoo. I have been planning to get a half sleeve for well over 3 years now. My arm just feels beyond naked and I want to see a nice piece of full color art there. When I could stand it no more, I called up my artist and planned a consultation. We start work on the 21st and I will likely have 3 total appointments for my arm plus the one for my bird that I made when I was in for my consult, which will get me through until the end of the year (with going in for a sitting once a month, as my tattoos always take longer to heal than normal). And that will satiate me for a few months until it's time to get my foot tattoo. After that - who knows how long it will be before I find my way back to the tattoo parlor. It's never more than a year or a year and a half before I'm doing a consult on my next piece. That's why I have so many.
Just like Pringles.
