A bipartisan group of state senators led by Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, pushed through a measure to regulate the body art industry in the state of Washington. Senate Bill 5391 recently cleared the Legislature and is awaiting Gov. Chris Gregoire’s signature.

This bill brings Washington up to par with the many other states that have passed legislation to regulate the body art industry and make our beloved art safer for the client. It’s about time, too. For many years the art has been unregulated in Washington because detractors have claimed tattooing to be an art form, and as such should not be regulated.

Well, Tattooing is an art form, as we all know, but it is a very special art form. No other art form has a canvas as unique as the human body and it should be common sense that when dealing with a living canvas the artist would know about the importance of sterilization. Most licensed tattoo artists that I know take the subject of sterilization very seriously and do everything they have been trained in to ensure the client’s health. The only people who usually have a problem with things like this are scratchers.

In fact two Washington tattoo artists; Steve Adams, owner of Painted Flesh Tattoo in Kennewick, WA, and Kody Flannery, 23, who recently started his own tattooing business, Cascadia Tattoo Co., have gone on record in support of the bill.

“It’s a decent idea to ensure the safety of clients,” said Steve.

Kody Flannery stated, “It’ll get some of the riff-raff out. Not everybody plays by the rules. It needs to be regulated.”

Funny. I hear the same thing from most every trained artist when the subject of regulation comes up. Even I, who hates government intrusion like a plague, have to agree. Our art is special, and as I said before, it is not something that just any Tom, Dick, or Harry can do. Laws such as this are the salvation of tattooing and will ensure that future artists are the respected, and highly trained professionals they are intended to be.

One point to the bill that I do take issue with is that it requires a mandatory inspection of the business every two years. I’m sorry, but that is just not enough. Perhaps the best inspection routine is where the studio has a mandatory inspection at least once a year with a surprise inspection that can occur at any time in-between. When I tattooed in Tennessee we never knew when the health inspector would show up, or how often. Although we never worried about it because we put the client’s health first, it turned out to be a good thing. Quite a few “grand-fathered in” scratchers went down in flames because of those inspections.

My kudos to the Senators of Washington for passing this bill, and to the governor as soon as he signs it into law. Once that happens the wheat will be separated from the chaff, and Washington will get a far better class of tattoo artist.

Peace out, Gang!

Will these people never learn?

Look. We all know that times are tough on everyone these days, but when will these scratchers get it through their heads that tattooing is a highly skilled art, not an easy way to make a buck?

The latest bid for the “Another Asshole out to Destroy Tattooing” award is a 45 year old woman from Hudson, NH. Ronalda Brunner-Cummings has recently been arraigned in the Nashua District Court for allegedly tattooing a 15 year old boy in her illegal apartment tattoo set up. Police allege that she has tattooed at least four teenagers there. God only knows what else she gave to them. “Happy sweet sixteen, Junior. You have hepatitis C.”

The truly disgusting thing is, if you checkout any of the tattoo forums online, she isn’t the only jerk out there doing this and it’s growing by leaps and bounds. Of all the things that threaten the hard won status of our beloved art, this is probably the greatest.

Almost every scratcher gives the same old tired excuses. “There’s nobody who is willing to teach me.” “I really love tattooing, but the nearest shop is 60 miles away and I can’t afford to drive that far.” “I bought a book/video with my tattoo kit and it showed me all I need to know.” “People have been tattooing for thousands of years. It’s not rocket science.” Ect….ect…ad nausea.

Let’s look at this for a second. One if there is no one who is willing to apprentice you, there is probably a damn good reason. Sometimes a artist will turn you down just to see if you have what it takes to tattoo. In a real studio there are tons of things you have to learn besides just being able to draw. Sterilization, cross contamination, keeping the tattoo area as clinic like in it’s environment as any health care practitioner’s place of business. What? You think all that shit gets done by itself?

Could also be that your as delusional as an American Idol hopeful. God knows how many of those tone deaf suckers have left the audition swearing that they can sing. Yeah, right. Most of them should call themselves Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.

If your not willing to do anything it takes to get an apprenticeship, then I would say it’s a safe bet that you don’t have what it takes to work in a proper tattoo studio. It’s also a damn good bet you don’t love tattooing, either. All of us who gained the proper training sweated blood to make it. We laid out the cash, traveled as far as we had to, and put up with more crap than you could possibly take. Why? Because we do love the art and were willing to pay the price to prove it.

That book/video is going to give you just enough information to get your ass in trouble, or someone else hurt. What is so ridiculous about that excuse is by the same argument I could read the driver’s test book and drive a car. Didn’t happen. I had to take driver’s education to get the feel for all the things the book couldn’t give. It’s the same with tattooing. There are hundreds of nuances that can not be taught in a book/video. They are the things that can only be learned by someone who already knows what they are doing showing you how.

Yes, tattooing has been around for thousands of years, but for the most part was done in small tribal groups where they didn’t have to worry about the blood born pathogens that plague us today. Hell, AIDS didn’t even exist fifty years ago, much less thousands of years. If a you think its just as safe now, then how do you explain the enormous increase in Hep C and other blood born disease in areas where scratchers are allowed to run wild?

Do you know how to properly set up an autoclave? Do you know how often to test it? Do you know how to test it? How do you set up a sterile tattoo station? What do you do to break the blood barrier for proper sterilization? What is the optimal speed for a liner, or a shader? What do you do if the client passes out? How should the floor of your station be properly cleaned? How far should the needle penetrate the skin? How do you set the needle for proper penetration? How do you get the color to hold in the skin without grinding it into hamburger? What is “brush shading” and how is it done properly? How do you apply a sterile stencil? How do you handle a obviously drunk client?

Tattooing is NOT an easy job! It is a highly skilled art form that takes dedication, care, and tons of personal feeling. If you really want to be a tattoo artist, then you should be prepared to show you are willing to earn it. As a scratcher, you are just part of the problem and deserve any punishment you’ll get. Including the law suit that should be brought against your uncaring ass.

American rapper/producer Pharrell Williams has ditched some of his tattoos. The 36-year-old Williams has recently replaced the variety of tattoos on his arms with bandages after undergoing extensive laser-removal treatments.

Early last year, Williams had announced that he planned to get rid of the tattoos, explaining that rather than go for laser treatments, he was going to have new skin cultivated specifically for him.  I don’t even know how that would work, but according to Williams, he had planned to have skin made for him in a secret laboratory somewhere in North Carolina.  Or er…something like that.  He insisted that it wasn’t simply a matter of skin grafting, but actually creating skin for him…

 “‘It’s going to be pricey, but fuck it, it’s worth it. I got fire on my arms! I’m a grown man! There’s an institute called the Wake Forest Institute in North Carolina for Regenerative Skin Treatment. It’s basically like getting a skin graft, but you’re not taking skin from your ass or your legs. These guys actually grow the skin for you.”’

In the end, I guess laboratory made skin was maybe a little too pricey for Pharrell, as he opted instead for plain ol’ painful laser surgery.  Either that or someone told him that the whole regenerative skin treatment thing actually only exists in that movie, Darkman.

Anyhow, Pharrell’s arms are now covered in bandages, as you can see from the photo and I guess he got his wish.  From the initial tattoos to removal, it all seems like a big waste of money to me, but oh well.  He can afford it.

A new tattoo exhibit has opened this weekend at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, PA.  The exhibit, entitled “Skin & Bones: Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor, chronicles the rise of tattoos amongst American sailors from the late 18th century to present day.  According to the event curator Craig Burns, tattoos and sailors have gone hand in hand for generations and that, “If you have a tattoo, you really have a sailor to thank.”

Burns is right.  Most of us live our lives thinking that sailors are only responsible for cool sayings like “shiver me timbers” and for fighting pirates, but it really is interesting to discover how deeply ingrained into the sailor lifestyle that tattoos have been.  One of my personal favorite sailor tattoos from way back is displayed on the poster for the exhibit: the rooster and the pig on the feet, talismans which are intended to protect sailors against drowning.  

The story goes that a pig tattoo on one foot and a rooster tattoo on the other will enable the sailor to walk on water.  The superstition started when cargo ships carrying livestock sank, leaving behind only the crates of animals, which floated.  As a result, the pig and the rooster came to symbolize this buoyancy and it became something of a tradition for sailors to adorn their feet with the likeness of a pig and a rooster.

Aside from the exhibit itself, there will be two screenings of the 2008 Eric Weiss documentary, Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry: The Life of Norman K. Collins, and a panel discussion involving Eric Weiss, tattoo historian Nick Schoenberger, director of the Tattoo Archive, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, C.W. Eldridge and U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Office Richard Sambenedetto Jr.  But wait!  There’s more: the museum gift shop will be filled to the gills with tattoo related books, souvenirs and pretty much anything that any tattoo historian or fan would find worthwhile.

So check it out, learn something new and pay your respects to an important part of tattoo history in America.

A while back, in January I believe, I did a blog about home tattoo removal that basically laid out what should be obvious to anyone with more than three functioning brain cells. Home tattoo removal is about as smart as do it yourself gallbladder surgery, and the greedy assholes who are promoting their “Home Tattoo Removal” kits are the exact same ilk as the old west Medicine Show con artists that plagued the frontier. About as honest, too.

Terilyn, one of our fellow bloggers, commented that the latest site in this exercise in stupidity was a “fake site”. A joke that was not intended to be taken seriously. Sorry, hun, but I have recently found out that this crap is not a joke. It is a deadly serious attempt to relieve tattoo regret customers of vast amounts of their hard earned cash. Oh, yeah, and to fuck up their skin in the process.

The wishful thinking product I am referring to here is WreckingBalm®, a sideshow con game product if there ever was one. The link goes straight to their “How Retching Balm Works” site. If the background reminds you of a vaudeville stage motif, that should tell you something! I’ll give you the plain speech translation to their slick, sucker presentation.

Introducing Doc Wilson’s WreckingBalm® No.3 for tattoo removal – a unique, devastatingly effective tattoo fade – removal system that is unlike anything ever seen from the far-reaching corners of the earth.

There is only one way to “fade” a tattoo….Laser Surgery! All other methods of tattoo removal require a form of dermabrasion. That is the sanding off of the layers of the skin to remove the tattoo. A practice that has been in use in every corner of the Earth. In fact this is what they are having you do to “fade” the tattoo, as they later admit in a spin doctor style.

Doc Talk: The secret of WreckingBalm® is the breakdown of ink injected skin cells and the utilization of your skin’s natural ability to heal and regenerate itself with healthy, new, ink-free skin cells.

The ability of the skin to form scar tissue after you sand the tattoo off in layers with their home dermabrasion sander.

Doc Wilson has produced a simple 3-step process that just takes 3 minutes every other day. This unique system safely combines three technologies and two simple methods of skin exfoliation and removal…The first uses an FDA-approved mechanical hand-held medical device that gently, but effectively, removes the upper layers of the epidermis

In other words, just like I said, the first step is dermabrasion. The truth is you are actually sanding the tattoo off using their sander!

The second step uses a chemical serum that penetrates deep into the underlying lower layers, breaking up the cellular matrix in which the ink pigments are imbedded.

If this shit penetrates the skin deeply to break up the ink, then what the Hell do you have to sand your skin for? Either this crap is nothing more than a mild acid, like the old Tatex® stuff that the FDA pulled off the market after it messed up a whole lot of people, or it’s nothing more than an antibacterial cream to help the skin heal.

In that case you’d be just as well off with a piece of fine sandpaper and a tube of Neosporin®…..it would cost you a lot less than they charge, too. Hopefully, you not dumb enough to try that either.

It takes 4 to 6 weeks for cells to naturally regenerate and complete one cycle.

Of course it takes several weeks for the sanded skin to heal! Since it takes several cycles for this garbage to fully “fade” the tattoo, you should now be wondering about that 3 minute every other day claim they made at the start. So, which is it?

I have a bigger news flash for you. Sand any part of you tattoo every day and in several weeks it will “fade”. It will also leave a nice smooth, but noticeable, scar in it’s place. I’ll guarantee it.

So, what brought this back up? A couple days ago I was driving along, listening to my favorite Rock station when a commercial for “Retching Balm” came on. This shit is not a joke, nor a parody site. It is another attempt to wring hard cash out of people who have tattoo regret and are too poor to have laser removal done. In short it is dangerous bullshit that will cost you more than you should be willing to pay.

Look, the honest truth is that the safest and least scaring way to remove a tattoo is laser removal done by a licensed dermatologist. The only other good option is to have the offending tattoo covered up with a killer design you can be proud of. Falling for this Snake Oil pitch is as much of a mistake as the choice that got you the bad tattoo in the first place. If not a worse one.

Think before you ink, Gang. And for God’s sake; don’t try this shit at home!

Since I started this week off with a post that pretty much dealt with tattoo regret, why not continue the thought and talk about some ways to avoid the whole mess in the first place? In a perfect world we would all make good choices and being sorry you ever got that Miley Cyrus tribute piece wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things work out so let’s look at a few rules of thumb that could make your life easier down the road.

Because a tattoo is a more, or less, permanent decision, the old Greek philosopher advice of “Know Thyself” should figure into the equation heavily. In the end you know yourself better than anyone else does….or at least you should. Tattoos that are based on your own deeply personal convictions will probably be ones that you will never regret.

Tattoos of things you really have an affinity for can also be a good bet. I’m not talking about the flavor of the day here either, I’ll get to that in a second. I’m talking about things and symbols that speak to your soul. For example; I have always had a thing for dragons and wolves. So my own tattoos are of either dragons, or wolf based designs. Trust me, I never have, nor ever will want to lose a one of them.

Lets look at something’s to avoid like the plague when considering your tattoo.

Number one with a bullet: Getting the name of your significant other tattooed on. I know your probably as tired of hearing that one as tattoo artists like myself are of saying it. But fools are still doing it, and regretting it. I’d almost go as far as to say that this kind of tattoo regret provides laser removal with a good 60%, or more, of their business.

Choosing your design when you are three sheets in the wind is another of the worst ideas there are, with doing it on a dare running a close second. You’ll probably want rid of either of those kind of tattoos in very short order.

This leaves the flavor of the day as our third of the tattoos you will most likely regret getting. Lets face it, fads are just that. Fads. What is cool today is almost sure to be an embarrassment later. While I’m not trying to pick on anyone, You would not believe the number of people I have run into who absolutely hate their Star Wars tattoos now. Sure it was cool at the time, but now they have become more of a “kiddy” thing they would like to forget.

Last, but not least, are the gag tats. The joke that you thought would not only be funny, but ultra cool as well. The problem with joke tattoos are that for the most part the joke wears thin after a while. Kind of like the guy at the party who only knows one joke and tells it over and over. After a while you just don’t want to hear it anymore.

While none of this is a hard fast rule to avoiding tattoo regret, (OK, maybe the lover’s name tattoo is.), they should provide you with enough of a guideline to help you steer clear of some future regrets.

Just remember that it is your body, it is your tattoo. If it is something you love and can live with, then tell the rest of us to piss off and be proud you have tattoos that you will like for the rest of your life.

In short, if that’s the case….Ya did good. 😉

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism has come forward to request that tattoo artists learn the basics regarding the Sanskrit language and to study and research the philosophy behind the Hindu culture itself.

The request came shortly after the discovery that singer Rihanna’s Sanskrit tattoo, which was supposed to read “forgiveness, honesty, suppression and control” was misspelled.  Zed placed particular emphasis on those in the tattoo industry coming to some sort of educational co-operation with the Hindu community, in order to better understand the religion and its Sanskrit alphabet.

While Rajan Zed’s wishes are understandable, in reality, it just isn’t going to happen.  The inherent flaw of such a request is that it’s not the artists who should be studying Hinduism and the Sanskrit alphabet, it’s the responsibility of the people getting the tattoo to actually know what they are getting tattooed on to their flesh.  A tattoo artist is there to provide the service that the customer pays for.  While it is arguable to say that because this is the case, the artist should know what he/she’s offering to their customers, the fact remains that it just isn’t their responsibility.  When the artist gives you that last look at the stencil before they start inking it in, you should know what you’re getting in to.

Maybe it’s easier for me to say this because I would never get a tattoo that wasn’t in a language that I could speak and/or read.  And maybe it’s not overly practical to suggest that people learn the language simply because they like the look of its script.  It does make sense however, to believe that in the end, your tattoo is exactly that: YOURS.  If you want to follow in the footsteps of the numerous Hollywood celebrities who’ve had their own Sanskrit tattoos done, look into what you want to get and make sure you know exactly what it means and what it looks like.  It’s that simple, really.  Not that I’m knocking Hinduism or suggesting that people don’t look into its philosophies and what not, but if studying a religion isn’t your thing and you want to avoid a Rihanna style mistake, it’s probably a good idea to research your tattoo before committing to it.

This is not an April Fool’s joke… everybody knows somebody who has some type of chinese kanji translation tattoo… well according to the Telegraph Zhang Aiping, a tattooist at Tattoo 108 in Shanghai, said: “Around 30 per cent to 40 per cent of our customers are choosing tattoos in English letters now. This has happened really suddenly, since the beginning of this year.

Know a great tattoo artist who is good at demon tattoo pictures and designs? Leave a link to there demon tattoos in the comments and we’ll add them to Tattoo Blog!

Adrian Lee
Analog Tattoo
San Jose, 95113
34 South First St,
Third Floor

Know a great tattoo artist who is good at pinup girl tattoo pictures and designs? Leave a link to there pin up girl tattoos in the comments and we’ll add them to Tattoo Blog!