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By infmom, March 4, 2010 12:43 pm

From the very beginning of time, no doubt, it’s been true that any part of the human body that could be tattooed, would be.   Until recently, though, eyeballs were only tattooed to cover up imperfections, and the work was done by doctors.

It is now possible, with the help of the right artist, to re-color the whites of your eyes.  The process has to be done with a syringe, not a regular tattoo needle.  Color is injected just under the surface and spreads out.  All reports indicate that this is an incredibly painful procedure.

Here is a recent story from the Huffington Post about a couple of guys who got the eyeball tattoos done in prison.  Apparently it is one way to prove how tough you are.  No kidding.  Given the decidedly nonsterile environment in prison cells, and the decidedly nontraditional equipment available to do the job, it’s a wonder these guys lived to tell the tale.  Whether they’ll still have their eyesight a year or two down the road, who knows?

Ordinarily my attitude toward body art and body mods is “whatever floats your boat.”  Tongue splitting, lizard spots, plastic beads under the skin, whatever.  But to deliberately put your eyes in jeopardy?  This is the only time I have found myself saying out loud, “What were they THINKING!!!”

There are quite a few web sites out there devoted to eye tattoos / scleral tattooing / etc.  I’m not going to link to them, because the few I looked at while researching this post made me queasy.  It’s my blog and I ain’t a-gonna make myself sick. 

What do you think about this?  Do you have any tattoos in less-common places yourself?
photo credit: dullhunk

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By infmom, February 5, 2010 3:44 pm

Ever notice how at this time of year, advertisers are all about “the big game”?  Seems the phrase “Super Bowl” is copyrighted and nobody can use it without paying for it.  Good thing the Super Ball was invented before the Super Bowl, hmm?

In honor of this weekend’s major wingding, here’s another bad-tattoo site:  Sports Worst Tattoos.  Don’t be eating those corn chips or drinking that beer while you look. 

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By infmom, January 28, 2010 11:34 am

Once you go looking for whoopsiedoodles by non-native speakers of various languages, the fun never ends.

I have a link to Hanzi Smatter (for Asian character stupidity) in my Blogroll, and it’s well worth a look if you think you really really want something in an Asian alphabet.

Today’s discovery is Bad Hebrew Tattoos.  It never ceases to amaze me the amount of trouble one can get into, not actually being able to write a language. 

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By infmom, January 26, 2010 1:09 pm

Image via Wikipedia

I”ve already talked about people who get Asian characters they don’t understand inked on themselves.  It appears that Asian languages are not alone.

Thanks to Tales of a Wayward Classicist for this lovely discussion of bad Latin tattoos.

It seems there’s no end to the stuff people don’t know they’re putting on their skin. 

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By infmom, January 12, 2010 12:47 pm

The Catster web site just posted an article entitled “Tatts on Cats?” Some nut case had a Sphynx cat anaesthetized so the cat could be tattooed with a picture of King Tut.

As a tattooed person and a cat lover, words simply cannot express my disgust.

What do you think? You can read the article here.
photo credit: Vironevaeh

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By infmom, September 29, 2009 12:49 pm

I take an art class once a week at the local community college, and I get there on the bus.  I didn’t think it was necessary to buy a semester parking pass for a class that meets once a week, plus the fact that a bus pass costs $2 and a parking pass is up to $60 these days.  (Local city bus, half the time the fare boxes are broken, so the 10-ride $2 pass often lasts me for most of a semester.)

When I get on the bus at about 7am, it’s smashed full of high school kids.  I am not a morning person, so most of the time I don’t notice much about my surroundings.  I’m too busy trying to hang on as the lead-footed driver lurches from stop to stop (no chance of any kid actually getting up and letting the old lady sit down, believe me).  But last week I noticed something.

High school kids with really bad tattoos.  I mean REALLY bad.  Wavering lines, ugly pictures, gang style calligraphy that looked like it was done by someone who had lost their eyeglasses and was staggering drunk.  Girls with illegible writing on their necks that had already spread out and changed from black to blue.

I wonder how many of them will think that ink reflects who they are in five years.  Five years is not much when you get to be my age, but the difference between 18 and 23, yeah, that’s significant.

In five years, those kids are going to be paying for the tattoo removal clinic’s new offices.  They are going to be sitting there day after day getting that glop zapped off them.  No matter how cool they think that stuff looks now, when they’re out there trying to find a job, they’re not going to dazzle anyone with that kind of personal adornment unless they want work in a biker bar.  They probably won’t be hanging around with the same bunch of friends who thought that ink was such hot stuff.  There goes one major incentive to keep it.

I remember how sure I was at that age that what I wanted inked was what I should have, forever.  A cute little flower in green ink behind my left ankle on the inside.  I used to draw it on my skin with a green pen.  Now that I’m old enough to have a tattooed daughter who’s herself old enough to have children, I look back at my green flower and smile.  It wouldn’t have been a disaster to get that permanently inked (had there been such a thing as a tattoo parlor within 200 miles) but it sure wouldn’t have been something I’d show off with pride.  If I’d gotten some of the ugly junk I saw on the bus I’d be looking for someplace to buy a burka.

There’s a reason why people younger than 18 can’t legally get tattooed.  A very good reason.  But the problem is, as with so many other things in life, making people wait till they’re a certain age means that the minute they pass that birthday, off they go.  And these kids definitely went.

Have I turned into someone who ought to be yelling at kids to get off my lawn and get away from the tattoo parlors?  Do people not spend time planning what they want any more?  Is this the resurgence of the “if it feels good, do it” generation?

Ugh.
photo credit: GORGEOUSBOO

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By infmom, August 13, 2009 11:46 am

I suspect there are not too many other grey-haired ladies driving around town in geezermobile Buicks (OK, we inherited it, we didn’t buy it, honest!) and blasting the reggaeton station on the stereo.  Well, what can I say?  I like reggaeton (I’m amused that not long ago I was one of only a few Gizmodo readers who knew who Wisin & Yandel were).

Of course, that station is geared toward, shall we say, a younger audience than the classic rock station I also listen to a lot, and thus the products advertised are somewhat…  different.  The other day, in among the ads for acne products, boob jobs, trade schools and so forth I caught one for a product used to fade tattoos.  And when I heard the product name I could not believe my ears.

Wrecking Balm?  They want us to buy a product called   Wrecking Balm?  Ye gods.  No matter how much I wanted to get rid of a tattoo, I could not imagine putting anything called Wrecking Balm anywhere near my skin.

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By infmom, April 8, 2009 11:34 am

A lot of people get so excited about the whole idea of getting a tattoo that they just go sailing right out without stopping to think about it much. I’m sure MY readers don’t fall into that category.     But in case you know someone who might act impulsively, have them read this.  It may save them a lot of grief.

• Never get a tattoo because someone else says so.
  I doubt there’s any way to count the thousands of people who went to the tattoo parlor because a friend or relative or Significant Other talked them into it.  I’m sure some of those people ended up happy with the experiemce, but let’s not assume everyone did.  If you are feeling pressured, or if you’re not really ready, or if you tend to just go along to get along, it’s time to say “Not this time, you go ahead, I’ll watch.”  And make it stick.  You do not want to be marked for life with someone else’s idea of a good time.
• Never pick a design off the first wall you see.
  Remember, tattoos are permanent.  Does that picture of a rose or a heart or Tweety Bird really mean so much to you personally that it deserves a spot on your skin forever more?  This does not mean you absolutely can’t pick something from the display of flash on the walls, but at least take time to think things over.  Choose one, then go away for a while and consider it, and come back and see if it’s still the one thing you want.  Talk with the artist to see if that flash can be modified some way to make it much more personal.  You’ll be much happier with something that speaks to the world about YOU.
• Never choose a name or symbol that represents the current era of your life.
  What do I mean by that?  The band that rules your world today might not sound so good tomorrow.  Do you want to be marked with their name or symbol for the rest of your life?  (Or do you want to pay to have Grand Funk Railroad removed from your bicep tomorrow?)  Likewise, choosing the name of a current Significant Other might be a bit awkward when the next S.O. comes along (think, Johnny Depp and his “Wino Forever” ink).  If you really must ink yourself forever over a relationship, choose a meaningful symbol of some kind rather than an actual name.  The trip to Dr. Tat-off you don’t have to make will save you a lot of money.
• Never get tattooed without finding out as much as you can about the process first.
  You need to know what you’re going to have to do to take care of your new ink.  You’re going to need to know what kind of clothing is best to wear.  You’re going to need to know what health problems might arise and what to do about them.  (Finding this stuff out is easy, just check the handy dandy index I’ve provided here.)
• Never “fortify” yourself for the experience with drugs or alcohol.
  That seems obvious, but a lot of people get scared and do stupid things.  We’ve all heard stories about people who woke up with tattoos and no memory of having gotten them.  No reputable artist will touch an intoxicated client, and for good reason.  This includes, by the way, trying to numb the area of your ink with Emla cream or something similar.  The anaesthetic takes quite a while to work, wears off relatively quickly, and of course anything that is applied to your skin stands a chance of getting punched into it by the needle in the process.  You don’t want that.  Yes, getting tattooed hurts.  If you don’t want to deal with that, temporary tattoos are your friend.

Those are the main things to keep in mind, and my earlier series (which I linked to above) goes into much more detail about other things you need to consider.  Do you have wise advice based on your own experiences?  I would like to hear about it.

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By infmom, October 27, 2008 6:47 pm

The other day, I saw a man with a rude, crude tattoo.  Not only was the design not up to junior high art class standards, it was a drawing of a hand making an obscene gesture usually referred to as flipping someone the bird.

I had to wonder why someone would mark himself permanently that way. I’m sure he thought it was a good idea at the time, but now he’s stuck with it, and does he really want to maintain that attitude forever?  I have no idea.  I certainly didn’t put myself at risk by asking.

Of course, I have wondered many times why people marked themselves the way they did.  Blurry ink lines, wretched art work, people’s names that later had to be crossed out or

Image via Wikipedia

covered up, gang symbols, you name it. There’s artwork done by people who look like they could have flunked coloring in kindergarten, designs that leave the viewer wondering what on earth the wearer was thinking, and what the artist must have ingested before picking up the needle.

Don’t these people check the artists out?  Or do they just not care?

And it’s not just bad artwork that leaves me wondering, sometimes.  Some of the calligraphy on gang tattoos is outstanding–why waste talent like that on art that only serves to make its wearer a target for trouble?  Come to think of it, why is the lower-back tattoo called a tramp stamp?

We multicolored people each have our own ideas of what’s appropriate and what’s artistic.  Have you seen anything that made you think someone’s doing his or her best to give multicolored people a bad name?

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By infmom, March 22, 2008 8:51 am

A lot of people get their start in body art by drawing on their own skin with ballpoint pens (or having their more artistic friends draw on them). I had a little flower drawn in green ballpoint ink on the inside of my left ankle for several years. I’d just re-draw it every time it got washed off. My daughter had an extremely elaborate abstract pattern on her arm when she was in high school–apparently that was a good way to fill time in boring classes.

I recently read a post on the about.com tattoo/bodypiercing forums (a link to their home page is under “resources” on the right) whose son had actually tattooed himself with a ballpoint pen. The parent’s concern was whether ballpoint ink was toxic; the kid’s was that after he put the ink on himself he decided he didn’t like it. (It is said that a person who represents himself or herself in court has a fool for a client; seems that some people who tattoo themselves have fools for artists, too.)

From everything I have read, ballpoint ink used in the USA is not toxic, but nowadays who knows where the ink is actually manufactured? I sure wouldn’t want to take a chance on ink manufactured in China out of who knows what kind of industrial waste. It might be OK for a temporary design on top of the skin, but injected into the skin? No WAY. Ballpoint ink is pigment dissolved in solvent, and you’d have to be nuts to want solvent punched into your skin.

And there doesn’t seem to be any consensus about whether ballpoint ink can be laser-removed like tattoo ink. The pigments are different. There’s the solvent to consider. It may well be that this particular adolescent folly is there for good. If the kid hates it now while he’s still in school, just think how he’ll feel about it later when he (presumably) grows up.

I think this is yet another example of why people should think before they ink!

photo credit: awrose

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