Piercing/tattoo equipment for Christmas?

[Cordyceps]

My daughter (who will be 16 a week before Christmas) loves drawing and is what her peer group today calls "goth" (quite different than the goths of my youth - a lot sexier, for one, and a lot less interested in music for two - but that's neither here nor there 😹). She is OBSESSED with piercings and tattoos. She has a couple of different ear piercings and a small nose piercing but no tattoos and will not be getting my permission to get any more piercings or any tattoos until she's 18 and I don't get a say anymore.

For Christmas and her birthday, she is desperate for a (real) tattoo gun and piercing needles/jewelry, along with a set of fake silicon skin and silicon ears/lips/noses/etc. to practice on. She is convinced that she wants a career as a tattoo and piercing artist and her argument is that if she wanted to be a chef or a painter or a seamstress I would have no problem buying her cooking equipment/painting tools/sewing machine etc. (absolutely true) and that this isn't any different.

I am confident she wouldn't actually use any of these things on herself or her friends (she is strangely quite conservative and rule-following in spite of her aesthetic interests). But what I can't say to her is that I am absolutely horrified by the idea of her covering herself with the same tattoos that so many people have all over their arms, chests, and even necks, hands, and faces- which is exactly the aesthetic she loves and what she would be doing in five minutes if I let her. I've also looked into it and "tattoo artist" isn't the lucrative career she thinks it is, unless you are extremely artistically talented alongside great business acumen. I love her more than my life but she is neither of these things.

I absolutely DON'T want to encourage this and I just pray that it will be unfashionable by the time she is 18, or that she'll grow out of it, or both- but will I just make her want it more if I refuse to let her have the "practice" equipment?

Encourage her to make a portfolio of her art work and approach tattoo artists to see if they are taking on apprentices. No decent tattoo studio is going to hire anyone who has been fiddling about with a kit at home. Don’t get her one, even if it’s just for practicing on fake skin etc. She needs to learn from someone already in the industry. There is a lot of money to be earned - but there are only a handful of really amazing talented tattoo artists and a huge amount of terrible ones!

She can also set up her own Instagram account with her art work and follow tattoo artists on there and hope she gets noticed that way too. She needs to be a talented artist first and foremost in order to get a good apprenticeship.

What they said ^

You need a licence to be a tattooist.

www.get-licensed.co.uk/get-daily/do-you-need-a-tattoo-licence-to-be-a-tattooist/#:~:text=Current%20UK%20law%20requires%20that%20premises%20operating%20a,for%20instant.%20How%20much%20can%20a%20tattooist%20earn%3F

Every tattooist I have ever used is a talented artist.
If she really wants to be one then she should be working on her art skills not playing around with a tattoo gun. Buy her art supplies.

I'd just get it for her.
She may or may not change her mind about doing it as a career but wether she does or not, if you're confident she won't use it on herself or friends, at least she's got something for Christmas she really likes and will use (same as with drawing/painting).
I understand what you mean about not wanting to encouraging a career you don't feel comfortable with her going into, but for me personally if it was something my child really wanted to do I'd support it (well, I say that, maybe I'll feel different when it happens 😅). Plus if she did do that and after a year or two decided if wasn't for her or wasn't worth it, she could always study to do something different

You haven’t mentioned her artistic ability. Is she brilliant? I believe that good tattooists are great artists first, and proficiency using the equipment is a very very far second. No one is a “great piercer” that makes ££££, it’s just a minor part of other jobs usually.

She needs to spend her time drawing for her portfolio, or she won’t have anything that makes studios take her on or clients come to her. Does she understand that?

I second (or third) approaching tattoo artists for an apprenticeship. That would be the better way rather than let her loose with the real equipment to practise on her pals. This will happen, it always does with the young and tattoo guns.

Most good tattooist take a dim view on home kits. Build her portfolio up. See if anyone is taking apprenticeships on. This was me back when I was 16. I grew out of it though when I hit 20 🤣

I'd get her art supplies and maybe some drawing classes. Practising on fake skin is of no use if you don't have any artistic skill first. She needs that before she can do anything tattoo related. Piercing is obviously less artistically reliant but fake piercing and real piercing are entirely different worlds. Piercing requires specialist training, it's not something you can learn at home with any degree of realism.

[quote CaptainMyCaptain]You need a licence to be a tattooist.

www.get-licensed.co.uk/get-daily/do-you-need-a-tattoo-licence-to-be-a-tattooist/#:~:text=Current%20UK%20law%20requires%20that%20premises%20operating%20a,for%20instant.%20How%20much%20can%20a%20tattooist%20earn%3F[/quote]
True but you don’t need a license to own the equipment and tattoo inanimate objects, which is what we are talking about here.

Very good points from the other posters here, thanks. She loves to draw but it’s the same few designs over and over and she doesn’t have an interest in art generally other than a very specific but ubiquitous tattoo style favoured by young “influencers” - I am confident that she would not be getting any sort of apprenticeship in any decent studio based on her current art skills. But who knows maybe she’ll improve, I surely wasn’t as good at or interested in making spreadsheets at 16 as I am now 😂

If I am completely honest I just wish I could somehow shake this whole interest out of her. It goes along with this obsession with makeup and of just staring at herself in mirrors and phone cameras for hours on end and it has not made her a happier girl, for sure. If she were to turn 18 today she would have lip injections and a tattooed chest and neck right up to her jawline the very moment she could pay for it and probably implants in front and behind, as well, if she had her way. The lip injections would go away, eventually, but I am terrified about the rest.

@Proudboomer

Every tattooist I have ever used is a talented artist. If she really wants to be one then she should be working on her art skills not playing around with a tattoo gun. Buy her art supplies.

I agree. Also is there any chance that by the time she's 18 any equipment bought now might be out of date? Thay possible a route you could go down.

**that's

Maybe buy her the equipment to design tattoos so she can work on the artistic side, there are programmes for iPads that tattoo artists use to design and draw tattoos that would be useful for her to start getting noticed for her art and help if she carries on wanting to tattoo, and isn’t destructive if she misuses it.

I wouldn't. I'd get her art kit and focus on that as others have said. I remember when Tattoo Fixers first came out there was a lot of criticism from the tattoo community about "scratchers" who learn at home versus those who are properly mentored and trained. I feel like she'd be better off learning from someone properly if she really wants to be good at it.

If your DD is serious about her ambition, can you go with her to/encourage her to chat to a tattoo artist about the career path? I agree with others that good quality art materials and perhaps drawing lessons are both a more practical step towards tattoo artistry as a career and have the advantage of, erm, not being tattoo equipment.

No way in the world would I buy that for my 16 yr old DD. She can do what she wants when she’s 18.
If she’s really interested in tattooing, as precious posters suggested, concentrating on her artwork portfolio would be a far better use of her time.

Good advice given already, but I'll throw in my two pennorth x

My DP is a body piercer with a 30 year career and still going, and we know lots of tattooists. Being a good artist is of course essential for tattooing so that should be encouraged. Both careers can be lucrative, but like any career it requires focus, dedication and hard work. Apprenticeship is the better route to go down and to be honest anything learned through tinkering around at home would probably have to be unlearned.
Things I might suggest are books about the history of both practises - Modern Primitives is one my DP swears by, as it covers the anthropological angle, and also books on things like anatomy and cross contamination. Piercing isn't just wanging a needle through flesh - you need to know where veins are in tongues for example, and as for intimate piercings that's a whole other can of worms.

Regardless of how one might look at morals or aesthetics, both careers come with a huge amount of responsibility, especially tattooing as it is of course permanent, and for good piercers / tattooists there is a fair amount of psychology involved too. Not to mention First Aid training - DP does a course every year to refresh - people bleed, people faint, people want things incompatible with their physiology, while 99 times everything is straightforward, the 100th client might be problematic and a good piercer needs to be prepared.

Also, like any job, it can become repetitive and lose its shine from time to time, it requires the same dedication as any other career, so having something to fall back on is a good idea. If your DD is really good at art, I would encourage her to have extra strings to her bow that cover her passions but don't keep her on a too narrow path.

Both professions fall somewhat into a lifestyle choice - if she asks for a suspension rig at some point she's really going down the rabbit hole - just a friendly heads up

I was discouraged from my passion which was theatre design, which I turned out to be pretty good at but life didn't go the way I wanted, but I remember the conflict with my Mum at that age x As a parent myself I can see both sides of the argument now and I hope you both navigate your way through this to a comfortable resolution. Time passes, passions change, it's all part of growing up and finding one's place in the world, and I wish you both well

The woman who does my tattoos has an art degree and was an incredibly talented artist before becoming interested in tattooing. Her waiting list is almost a year long.

A decent tattooist needs to be able to interpret a client’s requirements and come up with a suitable design for them. None of them will ever copy another person’s work. It’s a really skilled job.

@Bagelsandbrie

Encourage her to make a portfolio of her art work and approach tattoo artists to see if they are taking on apprentices. No decent tattoo studio is going to hire anyone who has been fiddling about with a kit at home. Don’t get her one, even if it’s just for practicing on fake skin etc. She needs to learn from someone already in the industry. There is a lot of money to be earned - but there are only a handful of really amazing talented tattoo artists and a huge amount of terrible ones!

This.

If she wants she could apprentice with a tattoo artist.

I would never buy a tattoo gun for anyone. That can only lead to disaster

How about getting her some mehndi so she can practice designs on skin (or silicon) add in some art paper and some stencils so she can start a portfolio.

The argument about cooking or sewing is different, if she wanted to be a chef you might buy her a set of knives or her own pans, you would not be buying a commercial kitchen.

And no chef would allow her to cook without a basic food hygiene certificate and some instruction.

All very good points everyone, thank you. There will be no tattoo guns or piercing needles or silicon ears purchased in this house (though her dad just gives her money so it may not even be up to me in the end if she keeps it at his house...)
What I think I will do is to ask her to look into the apprenticeship and portfolio requirements (just like I've asked her to look into university courses, etc) so she knows what she needs to do if this is truly her calling. I'll also look at the book @MistressoftheDarkSide has suggested and put that under the tree along with some new drawing supplies. She's not much of a reader and I'm sure she'll strop but at least I am trying to support her without letting her actually harm her own chances as a tattooist by trying to teach herself.

@Cordyceps

Happy to help x just a thought, see if you can have a proper look at the book as some of it may be fairly graphic - I'm trying to be mindful of her age but you will know if you think it's suitable based on your knowledge of her of course

There are other books out there that might be more palatable at this stage, it is all quite fascinating from a historical and cultural perspective. Who knows, she might be tempted into a career if anthropological research instead!!