My Tattoo Experience

Normally when people turn 18 they are most excited to legally be able to buy alcohol, but nope, not me. I’d been planning my tattoo for at least a year now, and as soon as I turned 18, it is the first thing I got done. Quiet literally, I was being tattooed at 10 am on my 18th birthday!

Designing

We’ll start off with the design, I’ve always been into my drawing and art, so I wanted to get something tattooed on me that I had drawn/designed, something that was meaningful to me. The first thing that I decided was that I wanted a dot work lotus flower, probably on my rib cage. So I spent countless evenings over the past year, drawing and designing and abundance of lotus flowers, until I came up with the one that I thought was perfect. A lot of people often go straight to places like Pinterest and pick a design from there, which theres nothing wrong with, I just wanted to get something done that I knew no one else would have on them.

Getting the Tattoo

Prior to getting the tattoo, all of my friends had shaken me up about the experience. Being the last of all my friends to turn 18, a lot of them already have tattoos, and they were all keen to tell me how much it was going to hurt, especially because I was getting it on my rib cage. Even one of the tattoo artists in the parlour said that she wasn’t brave enough to get one done on her ribs, and she was covered in them! Despite this I wasn’t nervous about the pain at all, I think where it was something that I had wanted to get done for a long time, the pain was kind of irrelevant.

Walking into the shop on my birthday I wasn’t nervous in the slightest, and this was making me nervous. I was nervous about the fact I was so calm about getting it done! I chose to get my tattoo done at Skinned Alive, located in Brighton as it is where my Mum got her tattoo, so I trust them to do a good job on mine! Walking in they were all incredibly friendly, and made sure to put me at ease.

Lets move onto getting the actual tattoo itself, because I’m sure thats what you all clicked on here for. I’m sure the one thing you all want to know is, did it hurt? And well  if I give you the honest truth, I’d have to say no, it didn’t! After all the hype of being told how much it was going to hurt, I didn’t think it hurt at all. You have to remember when getting a tattoo, that everyones pain threshold is different, so because it didn’t hurt for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t hut for you either. It took about an hour and a half to complete, and towards the end it did start to feel quiet sore, it did start to burn a bit, but aside from that there was no pain. I actually found the sensation of getting my tattoo quiet therapeutic, as I was lying down to get it done, I did nearly drift off to sleep!

Overall I am SO glad that I spent so much time and effort designing my tattoo, because it is perfect.  My tattoo artist has done the best job of it, I would highly recommend Skinned Alive Brighton. Also SO glad I didn’t listen to my friends when they were telling m how much it was going to hurt, because I took the ‘pain’ like a champ! If your thinking of getting a tattoo, my advice would be to just go for it, don’t let the prospect of pain put you off.

All my love,

Han xx