My Three-Day Tattoo Experience
It's a weird feeling walking into a tattoo studio.
The white light is harsh, cold, and hygenic, almost infringing on a hospital's trademark. Every wall is lined top to bottom with portfolios of different artists, sectioned off and screaming at you in their own unique, eye-catching styles. A lone shelf--a knock-off IKEA Kallax--sits in the corner propping up a set of stencil printers. The receptionist deck is strangely empty. I found a seat and waited amidst the loud, buzzing sound of needles.
Nobody paid me any attention. This was fine and expected. You should know that tattoo artists come in contact with some of the worst customers, and most of them aren't interested in doing any amount of sales song and dance. It is a common stereotype that a tattoo artist does not care about you when you first walk in through the door. If you want a tattoo, you want a tattoo. Whims and wishy-washy thoughts could be left to rot. Their work was already plastered over the bare walls. Everything you needed to make a decision was here.
Eventually my artist walked out to refill her water bottle, saw me in the corner, and asked, "Maddie?"
"Me."
The place was cold. Haphazard, un-finished walls were covered by plasterboard up to the mandated 2.4 m height, but their thin metal skeletons stretched higher to secure themselves to the towering warehouse ceiling. Exposed steel frames yearned to be covered with candyfloss insulation, yet stood cold and naked.
Hell. The place was freezing.
I signed some forms and showed proof of my ID while she measured my arm. She printed two sets of stencils for the custom design we worked on together. I pulled my t-shirt sleeve up and clipped it to my collar with two laundry clips; most tattoo artists recommend you wear a tank top if you want a full sleeve done. I do not possess one. This was the second best option.
She tested both stencils by taping parts of them to my arm.
"Okay, we go with this," she said after a moment's consideration. "Other size too big. Won't look right."
I lay down on the bed, adjusted my mask, and noted how lucky I was that my bed was positioned directly under the sole heat pump in the studio.
She picked up the needle. "Ready?"
Oh boy. Here we go.
Day 1
You're thinking about the pain. Everyone does.
It's not too bad. That's the most reassuring thing I can tell you, and I will fully admit to having an incredibly low pain tolerance. I squeal and cry at everything. My partner calls me the "most fragile princess in the world."
My experience was no different than other people's reports. I vacillated between, "yeah, this is fine" and "ow, okay, that's really sore." Gradually it sets into a rhythm. The alternation of your mood happens around every twenty minutes or so, but it depends on how well you've prepared yourself. Every tattoo artist out there will repeat the mantra: "Food is fuel." Expect to have eaten a hearty meal beforehand. Drink water. A properly hydrated and moisturized skin will take the ink better. If you're not someone who uses moisturizer daily, you might want to start a few weeks in advance.
Look. The needle is nothing to fear. It's really not that bad.
You should be afraid of the paper towel.
I got to touch the roll at some point during one of my breaks. I got to feel it's texture; all bumps and grooves. Fantastically absorbent. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But when your skin is raw and punctured and bleeding from the needling process, that paper towel is the killer. Rubbed against an open wound, it becomes sandpaper. And god, did she rub it in.
A 5-7 second snippet can best be transcribed as: Neeeeedling. Neeeeedling. PAPER TOWEL (OW FUCK) PAPER TOWEL.
Repeat ad nauseum.
And then there's (what I assume to be) the sterilization process. Once every forty-five minutes to an hour, she would pour a cold watery fluid over my arm. The effect was instantaneous, like salting a wound. My arm would catch fire. Each time it tested my ability to not make a sound. I could do nothing but clench my fist while she sandpapered my entire arm to clean away the excess ink. The bin quickly filled with these discarded soldiers, dyed black from their service. This was always followed by a cleansing spray that she rubbed gently over affected area.
On the first day, she sterilized my arm a total of thirteen times. Each time, the pain got worse, each time she had to cover more and more surface area, and each time, the paper towel grated down my remaining sanity.
I cannot stress how much I feared that paper towel.
For a tattoo session, common advice is to bring headphones or earbuds. I had brought mine along with my trusty Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adaptor, only to realize at the last minute that I had finally upgraded my phone this year to one with USB C so the converter no longer worked. Jesus christ. Luckily, earphones would've been a poor companion; a large sound bar was planted right next to my bed, wired directly under the heat pump. For the entirety of the first day, it blasted a never-repeating playlist of hip hop beats. The volume, loud enough to entertain the entire studio, would've defeated my earphones easily.
My only regret was not bringing a pair of sunglasses. Laying flat on the bed meant being exposed to the constant glare of the bright panel lights above. Eyes closed, they nevertheless seared their blinding light into my spheres. It was, putting it very lightly, extremely overstimulating even before the music was factored into account.
Every time I was given a break, I immediately started doing full body stretches. I squatted down low, did k-pop ankle lifts, pulled every exercise I could remember from the pilates playbook, only to become completely numb and sore the moment I lay back down on the bed or sat on the chair. Turns out staying still for as long as possible while trying not to flinch is incredibly taxing on your body. The pain--though bearable--breaks you down.
My tattoo artist sang softly the entire time. She seemed to know every hip hop song being played, despite it being the studio's own playlist. She loved humming the backing vocals. It was very sweet.
On Day 1, I lasted six hours before my body faltered. At that point, I stopped alternating between "it's not that bad" and "ouch, that's sore." The pain only ever increased from hour 6. My body had stopped producing adrenaline.
Most people will note that a sternum, rib, or collarbone are the worst parts to get a tattoo. Without any flesh or fat to dissipate the vibration of the needle, the entire sensation moves past the threshold of 'uncomfortable'. You feel every strike of the needle against the bone. It jitters your body.
Hour 6 was when she started working near my joints. I had asked for a certain intricate item as part of the design, and she put in three.
One near the wrist. (Ow)
One near the elbow. (Damn)
One on the shoulder. (Incredible 🫡)
I would like to thank my artist for putting the most detailed and time-consuming work on the most painful areas. In general, it's not a good idea to tattoo over a high traffic area like an elbow. That being said, the elbow joint is a lot larger than you think. Even though my tattoo doesn't cover visually what people might construe as the elbow area, I can tell you going anywhere close started to hurt immensely.
As she proceeded from my wrist towards the top of my shoulder, the pain intensified.
From hour 8 onwards, I began to fear the needle. The pain changed; no longer a severe discomfort but rather a scalpel cutting across flesh. She did not change the type of needle. She was working on brand new, unmarked skin on my upper arm. Fresh. Clean. The only difference was that my body had given up. Kidneys long milked dry of any adrenaline. The exhaustion has set in so deep that to give you an idea, I was falling asleep despite sitting up straight. I could feel myself drifting in and out, punctuated by moments of pain. The process had gone on for far too long and every sensation spiked drastically.
By my estimate, the pain had more than tripled.
And yet.
No matter how bad the needling pain got in the last two hours, no matter how much I wanted to scream, it was still nothing compared to that goddamn paper towel. Delirium drilled its way into my mind. The needle was pain, yes, but it wasn't the sandpaper sensation of the towel. It became a pain that spewed relief, a relief that dissipated quickly and gave way to fear within the span of seconds, because every loud trill of needles was followed by a ballad of sandpaper.
Meanwhile, the temperature of the studio had dropped down to 6°C. We are dead of winter in the southern hemisphere. The old, dilapidated building that the studio had rented space in had let in the icy outdoor chill. The heat pump struggled in that open airy space. I sat there, shivering in a thin t-shirt with my sleeve scrunched high with laundry clips. Parts of my body got some of the heat pump airflow (the rest was blocked by the tattoo artist's body), but the problem with displacing air is that cold air immediately rushes in to replace it. Half of my body was warm and in pain. The other half was cold, numb, and shivering badly from the cold breeze caused by the heat pump. It took a significant amount of willpower and muscle to stop the shivering of the right side of my body from travelling to the left where she was working on. I reminded myself that I was the canvas. If there was anything I could do for the artist, it was to stay as still as possible.
At hour 10, when she sterilized me again and started wiping it dry with the paper towel, that was when I -almost- let out a sound. Let me explain to you the depths of my anguish. I was ten years old. My parents were arguing. I was crying and shouting at them to stop. My brother was in the corner, playing with his toys, pretending nothing was happening.
That was the level of pain I experienced internally at hour 10.
And then, miraculously, it was over.
The session started at 11am and finished at 9 pm. In total, she took 3 ten minute breaks. Neither of us ate anything, but she did drink two cups of boba milk tea and unfortunately choked on it multiple times. Regardless, I was in awe at her stamina and resilience. She took her time and never displayed any sign of impatience or annoyance. She hummed hip hop and rap songs all the way.
Before I left, she tapped me on the shoulder. "Can you come one hour later tomorrow?"
"Sure."
"I need more sleep."
Me too. Me too.
Getting home by bus took an hour. After a quick shower and applying the sanitized bandage one handed, I dropped my meal prepped food and one of my favourite China bowls.
It was 1030 pm. There's nowhere to order out.
Day 2
I usually don't eat breakfast, but I did have a large portion of fried rice. My body needed it. I remained exhausted despite getting a solid six hours--unfortunately, that counts as a good night's sleep for me.
When I walked in and took a seat near reception, one of the tattoo artists noticed me. "Back for a second day?" he said, glancing at my arm. "It's looking pretty good."
I thanked him kindly.
"How long did you stay?"
"Ten hours."
He did a double take. "Okay. We have a rule here: never push a client past six hours. That's the longest we'll ever go, because every client only remembers the last two hours of a session--when it's the most painful. I find my peeps tend to break around the four hour mark. I start losing them. Any time we push a client past four or six, they don't want to come back. They think, 'oh maybe I can delay the appointment.' Sometimes, they start to hate the tattoo."
I understood what he meant. My friends with tattoos told me that I would scrutinize it greatly when I first went home. But that never happened. I was simply spent. I don't think I paid any attention to the completed linework.
"What are you having done today?"
"Shading."
He examined my arm. "See, usually we let all this heal first. Two weeks to a month, depending on schedule. That way the body takes the ink better." He quickly reassured me. "Oh, you'll be fine! You'll just take longer to heal. It'll hurt. But you don't have a choice. That's the problem with guest artists, you have to rush everything."
I was curious about his process, so I asked a few more questions, to which he was very happy to answer while working on a piece for a client on his tablet.
"I like to get sections of the arm done one by one. That way, even if a part is 'healed' we don't need to touch it again for the next session, because it's not truly healed." He meant that the top layer of the skin usually heals within two weeks, and quickly demonstrated what he meant by licking his own arm. "Yeah, lick it, no problem to your tat, won't hurt." But the deeper layers of the skin take an additional three to four months to recover and only then does a tattoo count as being 'fully healed'.
He then pointed to both his tattoo sleeves. They were missing sections, but the ones that were done looked fully complete.
"That's what you get when you have your boss do your tattoos." He laughed. "She's always too busy to fit you in for another session. How are you feeling?"
I confessed I was extremely tired.
"Yeah, you got something we in the industry call tat flu. Bigger the piece, longer the hours, more you're going to feel it. Like coming down with a cold. And if you get sick during this time"--he blew air out of his mouth--"hoo boy! You'll be in trouble!"
At this point, my tattoo artist arrived with, yet again, more boba milk tea. She also had a sandwich.
"You ready?"
I nodded. I was too tired to speak.
I do not think you need to 'earn' a tattoo. I am in no way better having gone through this pain.
If you are given the chance, ask for split sessions and never go over six hours. Take your time. Someone I know has a full bodysuit. He takes two month breaks between each session and tells me "it doesn't hurt at all." There's no need to repeat my experience.
A tattoo is easy. Honestly, I could do a four-hour session forever. The pain is nothing compared to maxed out laser hair removal or electrolysis. But there is very little you could offer me to experience hours 9 and 10 again.
I probably wouldn't even entertain the thought.
Shading does not hurt as much as line work. That I can promise you. What hurts, then, is the fact that she was doing it over fresh wounds of yesterday. When she brought out the paper towel again, when she started sandpapering me once more, bringing the memory out bright and fresh, it was almost a shock. See, the pain of getting a tattoo does not linger. It does not last. It fades so fast you might even find yourself forgetting it the moment you get a break.
The only problem is that the pain keeps coming back.
On Day 2, I broke early. It wasn't just the prior exhaustion, but a different problem had worn me down. Another tattoo artist had commandeered the sound bar with their own Spotify playlists. Once again, the volume was immense, but I understood why. The woman who did Japanese style tattoos (I heard she studied and lived in Hiroshima prior) seemed to use a different type of needle machine compared to everyone else. She was the only one who tattooed in a closed room because the vibration of her needles were incredibly loud. Everyone else's tools hummed softly. Hers screamed like a broken exhaust fan. Unfortunately, the closed room barely did anything since the walls didn't reach the top of the ceiling.
The real problem was that the sound bar was playing heavy metal.
Oh god. I am glad some of you enjoy this genre of music, but my entire experience was filled with thoughts of, "No wonder the US govt uses heavy metal as psychological torture."
I could not handle it. It was not only overstimulating, but the music acted as a secondary tattoo needle vibrating against the inside of my skull.
But hey, the employees in the studio seemed to like it. I think having good music you enjoy is core to the tattoo experience. You should definitely be listening to something that makes you jazzed up and feeling good, because it is an ordeal otherwise.
During my first break, my tattoo artist frowned at my arm. "You have very sensitive skin. Easily irritated."
"Thanks. I'm like that on the inside as well." 😎
"Irritated skin doesn't take ink fast. I have to go slower. Will take more time. Bit more pain."
...Okay.
Hour 4 was when I asked for a rest. I just couldn't stand the heavy metal anymore. I excused myself to the restroom. My tattoo artist called out to an employee.
"Hi! Can we change the music?"
"To what?" said an employee.
"Hip hop!"
"K-pop?"
"No! Hip hop! R&B! I like!"
They obliged. My relief was immeasurable. The Jackson Five - I Want You Back - started playing when I returned from the restroom. But when I sat down and the pain started once more, not even the upbeat voice of Michael Jackson could stop my heart from playing Simon & Garfunkel instead.
At least my tattoo artist was singing and humming again. She raised my spirits quite a bit.
While I never reached the painful depths of hour 9 and 10 of Day 1, I did come close. Hour 6 and 7 was gruelling. I wore a thick jacket on half my body to stop myself from shivering. Night came early, and I was once again freezing in the studio.
For Day 2, she sterilized my arm eleven times. I could not believe how bad the pain got. What saved me was a cinnamon cruffin that I had saved from lunch. Somehow, that small, half-eaten, slightly dry cruffin was instrumental to me pushing through.
Oh god, I thought. Food really is fuel.
I vowed to bring something for the next day.
On Day 2, we did 7.5 hours of work. Combined with Day 1, it was 17.5 hours.
The original estimate she gave me was 16 hours.
That night, she looked at me and smiled. "Okay! Easy six hours tomorrow."
😭👍
Day 3
When I walked in, the boss of the tattoo studio stared at me.
"Day 3? Nooo!"
She caught my forlorn look and laughed.
"You're good! I can't even handle two days in a row!"
Two of her employees immediately stuck their heads out from the corridor and shouted, "You couldn't even handle one day!"
"SHUT UP! Get back to work!"
Let me tell you--I was too tired to laugh.
My tattoo artist came with another guest artist, a close friend of hers. I believe they work together in Seoul. Every now and then her friend would pop over and examine her work; she spoke in quick, excited tones, while my artist replied in a gentle monotone, likely due to a focus on her work. During break, the two of them shared sandwiches and boba milk tea and laughed. It was a fun and gentle atmosphere compared to the hustle and bustle of the previous day.
But for the appointment, my body gave up after hour 2.
No matter how well I slept, how hearty a meal I ate, I could not conquer the prior fatigue. The pain intensified drastically. I began to shiver and jerk at odd moments, especially when she worked on the three intricate items near the bone. Those took a lot of shading work.
Learning my lesson from before, I had brought a small snack: a pain au chocolat from a local bakery. But eating it did nothing. The magical properties of food had failed me. Perhaps my body was too tired to even digest the damn thing, and I was grateful that at least I didn't experience a carb crash. Maybe I should've brought a chocolatine instead.
When she started working on the white highlights, that's when I began to bleed profusely.
"Ah," she said. "Okay. No problem."
She continued.
Perhaps it was because she had to work over areas already done with line art and shading, but it felt like she was pushing the needle far deeper than before. Or maybe I was just too tired. I realized early from Day 1 that I could not trust my body's sensations. Once the process goes too long, you can even start confusing which part of your body is being worked on; upper arm, lower arm, wrist, it all starts blurring together.
Now, about white ink.
Out of all the colored inks, white fades the fastest. Most people will report that it becomes invisible between 2-6 years, based on individual sun exposure. I was fine with this because there was a very minute amount of white ink being put on my arm. In fact, I didn't even ask for it; she added it as part of her art style. At a glance, you probably wouldn't even notice the highlights. If it magically faded tomorrow, I think most people wouldn't notice the difference.
I do not remember it ending. All that happened was that she sterilized my arm for the fifth time that day, necessitating a mighty clench of my teeth and fist, before she started wrapping it up.
"Okay! Done!"
I looked at the clock. We finished in 4 hours. But somehow, it felt like hour 8 again.
She walked circles around me and nodded her head. "Good! I'm very proud!" She also told me that I had claimed the mantle for the biggest piece she'd done on an arm; usually she only does these massive works on people's legs and thighs. Once on a back.
She also told me that it's very likely I'll need a touch up since my skin was so sensitive. In her experience, ink fades faster on sensitive skin, so she gave me the dates in which she'd be back from Korea.
Afterwards, I asked her to sign my arm (in regular pen) and she was very surprised. "Really? No one's asked for my signature before! _" She test signed a few times in her notebook, laughed, and then drew on my arm.
Here's the final count: Time - 21.5 hours. Sterilization burn - 29 times.
For the shoot, she took over 200 photos in various poses and I'll be honest, I felt like a model. Afterwards, we chatted a bit and I thanked her, saying that I hoped I was a good client.
"You were best client! Very high pain tolerance! No move!"
IF SHE HAD CALLED ME A GOOD GIRL I WOULD'VE MELTED RIGHT THEN AND THERE.
So, every tattoo artist out there will say that getting a tattoo is half the work. The other half comes from the two to four week long aftercare.
Listen to me: You can cheat the first week.
You can drastically speed up the healing, stop most of the scabbing, and prevent the excess ink and plasma from oozing onto your bedsheets and staining them black. Just get a sanitized bandage like Saniderm (provided you are not allergic to adhesive).
It's incredible, as long as you are not the 1-2% of the population allergic to adhesive. I know I keep stressing this, but this is important, because Saniderm is not cheap. I do not want you to spend money on it only to react badly.
But if you use it, you can sleep on it. You can shower with it (obviously, you should still use cold or lukewarm water). You can wear clothes over it. You don't freak out when you bump your tattooed area into a door knob.
IT'S SUCH A CHEAT, IT ALMOST FEELS UNFAIR. Saniderm is not the only brand who makes these sanitized bandages, but they're probably the most well-known.
Once the first week is done and the bandage is removed, I washed twice a day with a hypoallergenic baby soap and used a simple tattoo cream with Cerave Fragrance Free moisturizer. If you're in NA, you'll probably be recommended Lubiderm instead. I know people who are allergic to Aquaphor, so I didn't try it, but many will swear by that product too.
And that's it! Don't scratch it. No matter how itchy it gets, don't scratch it.
Personal Thoughts:
Someone once said on Twitter that a tattoo was, buck for buck, the most money-efficient way of curbing gender dysphoria. Provided you are open to the idea, I do agree.
Like many Asians who grew up in conservative families, we were drilled from a young age that a tattoo is one of the worst things you can do to your body. After all, it was one of those 'irreversible' things, and you cannot min-max in life and enjoy capitalism if you do 'irreversible' things. Something like this would destroy all your university prospects. It would ruin your job interviews. You'll never become a CEO. Only bad people and filthy gang members stooped that low. The police should--and did--round up people with these 'ugly marks'.
Hey.
Listen.
You only have one life. It's your body. You can do whatever you want. Surgery, tattoos, HRT, anything.
Just make sure it's for you. And I hope--
sweetheart,
love,
darling,
--that it makes you happy.
On a final note, please don't ask me to post photos. Tattoos are a very easy way to dox someone, especially with a custom design. I also asked if my artist could refrain from posting the photos on her website portfolio or social media and she kindly obliged.
I did this for myself. I wanted it. I'm incredibly satisfied. Most of all, I feel extremely lucky to have found this artist and that she was willing to take me on.
My real-life friends can see it and touch it (amongst other things😏) but other than that, I am perfectly fine keeping it hidden under a jacket or a long sleeve.
This is for me.
I'm happy.