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By infmom, March 4, 2007 4:06 pm

What do you wear when you go to get your ink?

The obvious answer would be “something that won’t get in the way.” But the location of the tattoo plays a large part in the choice of clothing, too. If you’re getting ink on your arm, it’s no biggie to wear a tank top if you’re a woman, or just remove your shirt if you’re a man. That takes care of clearing the decks for action while the ink is being applied, but what about afterwards? Putting a long-sleeved shirt back on over fresh ink, even if it’s bandaged, might be more of a problem than one expected.

And what if you’re a woman getting ink on areas normally covered by clothing? If your artist has private booths and you don’t mind being more-naked-than-usual in front of a stranger, problem solved. But for a relatively public place, you’ve got to think about how you’ll be sufficiently covered. When I got the tattoo on my shoulder blade, I went out and bought an inexpensive beige tube bra (new) and several loose-fitting button-up shirts (from the thrift store, so if the ink stained them, no biggie). When the time came, I just took off my shirt and sat in the chair wearing jeans and the tube bra. I was revealing less of myself than I would have in a bathing suit. I was comfortable even though the chair was right by the front door and anyone could look in the window even if they didn’t come inside. I wore tube bras during the healing process, too, so there were no bra straps to rub against the healing skin.

What if you’re getting ink on an area normally covered by pants and/or underpants? You’re the only one who can decide if baring that part of your anatomy to the world (if there are no private booths) is going to be within your comfort zone. This is something you should take into consideration when you’re planning where to place your ink.

Your new tattoo will “weep” for several days after it’s applied. Most artists advise not reapplying the bandage once you’ve taken it off, so it’s a good idea to wear clothes that don’t rub against the newly-inked area, and that you don’t mind getting multicolored splotches on. This is where thrift-store outfits can really help. If you’ve only paid a couple bucks for the shirt or sweat pants (or whatever) you won’t care if they get stained. And clothing from the thrift store is much likely to be soft and “broken in” so you don’t have to worry about stiff fabric causing problems.

Your artist will have suggestions, and you should ask him or her after you’ve discussed the tattoo and where it’s to be placed. If you’re new to being multicolored, you don’t want to ruin the ink by being fashionable instead of comfortable.

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By infmom, February 24, 2007 12:07 pm

Not everyone likes tattoos. (Wow, talk about a revelation, hmm?) And a lot of people who don’t like tattoos are not shy about saying so.

What happens if you’re a multicolored person in a tattoo-hating family? What happens if you’ve got a parent or sibling who is bound and determined to tell you off about what you did to yourself? When you’ve got a lifetime of actions and reactions built up, how do you get past all that and explain what the other person can’ t seem to understand?

I think the person who comes up with a definitive answer to that will make a fortune. Needless to say, I’m not the one. Not yet, anyway.

As I’ve mentioned, I first got the idea of getting a tattoo when I was 16. I already had a pretty good idea of how my parents felt about things like that (they didn’t want me to get my ears pierced, for one thing). Little did I know that 40 years later when I finally got my first real tattoo, my mother would still feel the same way.

Good thing I was in Los Angeles and she was in Georgia when it happened, that’s all I can say. She happened to call me the day I got my tattoo. Maybe I shouldn’t have waited till the end of the conversation to just casually slip that fact into the discussion. But I suspect she would have hit the roof no matter what.

Now, granted, my mom’s in her seventies, and in her day, tattoos were more a matter of soldiers, sailors and Lady Luck. I can see not being thrilled at the idea of your daughter coming home from some scummy dockside place with a busty babe, dice and a winning poker hand inked into her arm. And it wasn’t as though I’d ever, oh, mentioned that I wanted a tattoo in all those years. So her “You did WHAAAAAAAT?” was understandable.

But in the ten years since then, my mother hasn’t changed her mind one bit. She didn’t even want to look at my ink. Not even the multicolored Chinese dragon that I designed in honor of her mother. She doesn’t like tattoos. End of story. At least I’m old enough to give myself permission to get them. And now that tattoo parlors require people to be of legal age in order to get inked, the issue of getting a reluctant parent to give permission shouldn’t come up any more. That doesn’t mean that one’s relatives won’t raise a fuss if they feel strongly about the issue, though.

Whether to consult with family members beforehand or present them with a fait accompli is best left to individual discretion. One does have to consider whether the tattoo is worth long-term family animosity, though. In some cases it might be better to wait and give people a chance to get used to the idea. Or make sure the tattoo is applied to an area that can be easily and completely hidden from view for as long as necessary.

However, in my case there was an amusing postscript to the parental reaction. A year or so after I got my first tattoo, I found a web site that would let me send off for photocopies of the paperwork my great-grandfather signed when he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in WWI. When the papers arrived, I discovered two things. One, his handwriting and his daughter’s (my mother’s mother’s) was nearly identical. And two, he had three tattoos, one of which was a dragon.

I called my mother and told her this. “It’s genetic,” I said, “and it’s all your fault.”

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By infmom, February 17, 2007 12:00 pm

Once you’ve decided on your design, and taken the various inks and colors into consideration (you did do that, right?) then it’s time to give some thought to the placement of the tattoo.

Many people figure they want it where they want it and if someone else objects, tough. I can understand that. And I’m as much an admirer of full sleeves and hand tattoos as anyone. But unfortunately the entire rest of the world isn’t like that.

Many employers still have dress code that forbids open display of body art. Yeah, stick in the mud, yadda yadda yadda… but they do.

Tattoos are permanent, or in the ideal world they should be. So why put limits on your future by putting something permanent in some area of your body that you can’t easily cover up? You’ve got plenty of skin that you can put clothing over if necessary, so why not start with those areas and think about the more visible places later?

I’ve even run into problems covering up the seven-star swoosh over my right collarbone. Most open-collared shirts reveal one or two stars, and a V-neck or scoop-neck shirt shows off most of the design. You can bet when I’ve gone on job interviews I’ve buttoned everything up just to be safe. It might well be that the interviewers would have liked the design, but I didn’t take any chances. Job interviews are stressful enough without worrying if you’re inflaming someone else’s prejudices.

Of course, once I was hired and had settled in and people had gotten used to me, then I felt a bit more at ease about letting a star or two show. Then I’ve been asked if the design was “real” (why no, I drew it on myself with colored markers just this morning) and people have asked to see the rest of it. Like most multicolored people I’m happy to show off my ink. But in any new situation involving employment and acceptance by one’s work environment it was better to start off slow.

So–think design. Think ink. Think placement. Getting a tattoo is something that requires more thinking than you think. Or words to that effect.

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By infmom, February 12, 2007 3:31 pm

When tattoos were first invented, the process was pretty simple. Grab a handful of ashes from the fire, maybe mix them with some animal fat, rub that on your skin and poke the design with a thorn or something else equally sharp. Or carve the design into your skin and then rub in the ashes. Or thread up a needle, rub the sinew (or whatever cavemen used for thread) in the ash mixture, and pull it through the area of skin you wanted to decorate.

Ow.

Later on, people figured out how to make colored tattoo ink by mixing various minerals with animal fat (same stuff they used to paint on the walls) but the process of embedding it in the skin was pretty much the same. Good thing nobody ever heard of germs in those days.

Today we have ink in dozens of colors from hundreds of manufacturers, and the process of applying it is both easier and more complex. But just as back in the old ashes-and-bear-grease days, not every person’s body is going to react well to the addition of the design.

The fact is, although tattoo inks are manufactured to be as nonreactive as possible, people do have allergic reactions to them. And perversely enough, the skin often doesn’t react to the ink till days or even weeks after the tattoo is done, so it wouldn’t even help if there were a “patch test” for tattoo ink. Sometimes it’s even worse–you’ve gotten sensitized to some brand or color, but you won’t find out about it till someone applies that brand or color to your skin in a future design.

And even more annoyingly, sometimes part of a tattoo will react and another part with the same color won’t. My ankle tattoo (the Egyptian design shown in a previous message) has one area of red ink that remains raised, itchy, and flaky two years after it was applied. The other red area was like that for nearly a year and then settled down. One of the teal green areas raised an actual blister about a year after it was applied, but is fine now.

Go figure.

How can you insure that you won’t have a reaction to the ink? You can’t have absolute security, but choosing your artist carefully will help. An experienced artist will have an idea which inks are least likely to cause problems and will almost certainly be using those in preference to other brands. He or she will have plenty of suggestions for dealing with reactions should they occur. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Of course, if you do what I did and get a tattoo on the spur of the moment from an out-of-town artist at a tattoo show, that’s not going to be quite as easy as going back to a local shop to show the artist what happened and ask for help, but if that’s what you’ve done, do call the artist ASAP and explain the problem. He or she will want to know that one of the inks is a potential troublemaker.

Red ink seems to be high on the list of potential allergens. It certainly has been a problem for me. I don’t know whether I’m going to get more tattoos and hope for the best, or stop with the three I have to avoid future problems. Tattoos are addictive, and I certainly want more. But do I want to take the risk?

Who knows?

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By infmom, February 5, 2007 12:42 pm

If I’d been able to make that green-ink flower-in-pot design on my ankle permanent back when I was sixteen, I would have done so. But would I have wanted to keep that doodle for eternity? I thought so at the time.

Nowadays, tattoo removal is big business. Way, way too many people are getting inked and regretting it, and paying “Dr. Tattoff” and his compatriots to undo the damage.

I think maybe there should be a mandatory waiting period at all tattoo parlors, although I doubt something like that would be enforceable. But if you’re required to submit your design and come back in a week, maybe you’ll decide that having Tweety Bird on your butt isn’t as appealing as you thought it was when ALL your friends were going to Joe’s Tattoo.

Of course, who am I to talk? My last tattoo was done on impulse, at a big tattoo show on the Queen Mary. It was kind of cool to lie there having work done on my ankle and think what the Duchess of Windsor, a frequent Queen Mary traveler, would have said. (I’ve read that she and the Duke were both tattooed, themselves.) If there had been a waiting period for getting a tattoo, I would have been out of luck. And the mediocre ankle tattoo that I walked in with, would never have been changed into the fantastic ankle tattoo that I walked out with.

Hmm, maybe “submit your design and wait a week, unless you’re at a tattoo show?”

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