Apprentice to Master: The Career Path of Successful Tattoo Artists

The career path of becoming a tattooist is not the same as deciding to become an accountant. You cannot take a detour by going to the job centre, picking up a paper and emerging three months later with a diploma entitling you to be a decorator on skin. No, the route to becoming a tattooist […]
Tattooing Over Scars: Transformation, Healing, and Technical Considerations

Scars represent narratives we didn’t necessarily want to write—surgical wounds, accidents, teenage pranks, and a self-destructive impulse. Nevertheless, the tattoo parlours and studios of the world, from Tokyo to Tottenham, have experienced a slow but steady transformation for decades. Tattoo artists practicing scar coverage have elevated the state of their artwork to something approximating restorative […]
Aging Gracefully: How to Ensure Your Tattoos Look Good Decades Later

Let me tell you, I’ve watched thousands of people make decisions they later regretted. But here is something that most won’t tell you: that fabulous ink you are walking around with right now? Well, you see, it is living tissue. It is not static art work hanging on the wall—it is part of your largest […]
The Psychology of Tattoo Placement: What Your Tattoo Location Reveals

Psychology of tattoo placement has intrigued anthropologists, psychologists, and lovers of body art for millennia, and for good reason. Where you decide to dye your body is more than just a tattoo; it’s a story that is more revealing than the imagery itself, a language that is written not in ink, but in the rich […]
Tattoo Cover-Up Masterclass: Turning Regrets into New Art

So here you are, looking at that tribal armband you got in 1997, or maybe the name of a person that makes you shudder when you catch a glimpse of it in the mirror. The first thing to know is that tattoo cover-ups have gone from some sort of desperate attempt to be discreet, to […]
Using Memorial Tattoos To Cope With Loss

In the breadth and depth of human life there is an interesting paradox – grief, arguably the most fleeting and ungraspable emotion, yearns for eternity. We who grieve cling to memories which are soft as smoke, terrified they will ever vanish into oblivion. Enter the memorial tattoo – the ancient art of skin marking now […]
Tattooing Minors: A Cultural and Ethical Dilemma

So let us now turn our consideration to a rather thorny topic, a subject which falls at the curious junction of human freedom, parental anxiety, and the sober business of boring holes in the skin with needles filled with indelible ink. I refer, of course, to the question of tattoos — or, more specifically, whether […]
Tattoo Blowout Guide: Causes, Prevention and Fixes

A tattoo blowout occurs when ink spreads beneath the skin’s surface, creating a fuzzy, blurred effect rather like watching BBC Four after someone’s sat on the remote control. It’s more like dropping a splash of ink onto a piece of tissue paper – the way it spreads outward, bleeding beyond its intended boundaries. That’s essentially […]
The profound meaning of Butterfly Tattoos: a symbol of transformation and freedom

In recent years, the butterfly tattoo has gained great popularity among body art enthusiasts, both for its aesthetic beauty and the deep symbolism it carries. Although often considered a “classic” tattoo, the butterfly is a subject that hides profound and personal meanings, going beyond the simple depiction of a graceful insect. But what makes this […]
Tattoo Cover-Ups: Transforming Old Ink into New Masterpiece

Good heavens, dear readers! Who would have thought that in the span of a few decades, we’d witness such a dramatic shift in the perception of tattoos? Once the domain of sailors, convicts, and rebellious youth, these inky adornments have now become as commonplace as a well-tailored suit or a perfectly brewed cup of Earl […]
