| WHAT
IS IT? DOES IT HAVE A MEANING?
My tattoo is a rosary around my ankle
and despite me being a Catholic it doesn’t have a proper meaning. It’s a piece
that I’ve wanted consistently for the past four or five years. There are so
many tattoos that I like, but this is one that I feel like I’ll love for many
years to come and it’s such a simple (and in my opinion non-offensive) piece.
| FINDING
THE RIGHT TATTOO ARTIST
When I finally hit 18 and was initially
looking for a tattoo artist, I literally tweeted saying that I was looking for
a tattoo artist – don’t do this. In my opinion, if an artist has the time to be
scouting people to tattoo, they’re not in high enough demand and I personally
don’t want them to tattoo me. About a year ago, I was watching extrasunbeamsjess on Youtube and she
vlogged a day where she was getting a tattoo and hers turned out so beautifully
well and she later done a video talking about it as well as the tattoo artist
and studio. I first started researching the tattoo artist, Eszter who’s work I love and then I looked into Sang Bleu - the tattoo studio to see if
there was anyone whose work was perfectly in line with what I wanted and then I
found Ruby Quilter.
| HOW
LONG IT TOOK
The tattoo itself took about an hour to
complete, however at the beginning of my session, I met Ruby, spoke to her
about what I wanted and gave her my reference material and she went away to
draw up the cross. A little bit later she came back and we went through to the
tattoo bed and she started positioning and drawing the body of the rosary on
freehand. This took quite a while I wanted to be sure of the positioning of the cross,
sizing of the beads and just overall look of the tattoo. During the actual
tattooing, I tried to call as many people possible to try and distract me and
take my mind off it but that failed as no one was bloody answering their
phones, so I was looking through snapchat stories and reading things like
Buzzfeed and The Sun, even though none of it really distracted me.
| HOW PAINFUL?
The pain is a really difficult thing to
describe as it’s nothing like what I’ve ever felt before. Most people say that
it’s like a hot cat scratch, but what the f*ck even is that? For me the most
painful thing was when Ruby was doing the outline of the beads and the cross
and tattooing on my actual foot and near my ankle as it was quite close to the
bone as well, however she made sure to complete the outline and shading before
moving onto another part so that she wouldn’t have to revisit an already
sensitive area. When it came to the shading, I wasn’t in as much pain –
obviously except when it was on a boney area.
| HOW
MUCH DID IT COST?
My tattoo cost £250 altogether. At Sang
Bleu, you pay a deposit to confirm your booking and if you pay via PayPal, it’s
£50 and in store is £100 which then get’s deducted from the overall cost of the
tattoo. I know absolutely nothing about tattoos, so knowing whether the cost is
what it should be isn’t my forte, however from prior conversations with other
tattoo artists and getting quotes from different artists, the fee was very much in line
with those.
| HEALING
& AFTERCARE
The hardest thing about the healing
process was when it my tattoo would itch and knowing that I wasn’t supposed to
scratch it as well as when it started to scab and knowing that I couldn’t pick
at it either - sounds disgusting, but it's tempting! My tattoo finished properly healing at around 3 weeks. The first
few days, I was just concentrating on keeping it clean. I was advised to use a
gentle soap and warm water to clean it 2-3 times a day and re-wrap it and then
after a couple days, to start using a light layer of cocoa butter to keep is
moisturised and once it was dry that I didn’t have to keep wrapping it. A few
days later, it was really starting to itch as it was obviously healing and
getting ready to form a scab. Something
that I wasn’t told until after I got my tattoo is that your tattoo will kind of
‘bubble’ or rise, which is also part of the healing process. I knew that it
would scab towards the end of the process, but I thought it would be a similar
scab as to if you were to get a cut on your knee, but it’s not and to the naked
eye, you can’t really even see it.
| FUTURE
PIECES
I’m a bit undecided about whether I’m
going to be getting any other pieces yet. I love my tattoo and definitely don’t
regret it, however I feel like when you’ve just got your tattoo and it’s all
new, you’re extremely excited about it, however then it has to heal which takes
on average 2-4 weeks and by the time it’s healed, you start forgetting it’s
even there. I love tattoos on other people and I’ve even started to contemplate
getting a half sleeve on my arm or a leg sleeve, but I’m not too sure as that
will completely alter my look – a lot more than a little piece around my ankle.
I’m really selective about what’s going to go on my body as in a few years, I
don’t want to be inflicting more pain on myself by undergoing laser surgery. So
if my next piece is in a month or ten years, then so be it, as I’m not in any
rush to undergo that devilish needle again!
Do you have any tattoos? What’s your
stance on body mods?
Would you like to comment?