Tattoos - Are You Brave Enough

Are you brave enough for a tattoo? I know I got as far as choosing a design and waiting in the queue at a tattoo shop in Soho before I chickened out and went home.A tattoo has not changed over the centuries it is still the placing of pigment into the second layer of skin called the dermis. The methods for doing this have become slightly less barbaric but the process is the same.Ancient tribes would traditionally cut the skin in a pattern and then rub ink, ashes or other pigments into these open wounds to create the tattoo! Certain other tribes would create a tattoo by hand tapping the ink into your skin using sharpened sticks or animal bones, no wonder these tattoos were seen as a right of passage into adulthood by some tribes!Thankfully today modern tattoo machines are used to insert the pigment into the dermis. The basic machine is not unlike the first ever tattoo machine created by Samuel O'Reilly back in 1891. One of the biggest changes is that the needles are all single use sterile needles which should always be opened in front of you prior to the tattoo being done.There are five needles all attached to an oscillating bar which drives these needles into your skin rapidly - 80 to 150 times per second! One person related it to a sewing machine going over your skin.Of course how painful a tattoo is, depends on a number of factors. A small tattoo of only one colour ink should only take about fifteen minutes to complete and should be relatively pain free in comparison to a large tattoo with intricate designs and many colours, which would have to be done over several sessions each lasting a couple of hours. The other factor determining pain is the location of the tattoo, any area with very little flesh and mostly skin on bone is going to hurt. Your ankle, ribs, hip and tops of your feet. (It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it!) Then there is your own personal threshold for pain, some people can just simply tolerate more pain than others. So when your friend says to you 'no, it wasn't painful at all' think carefully. It might not have been to him, but how do you handle pain?If like me you are a bit of a chicken then maybe a temporary tattoo is for you. There are many different types on the market. Henna, gets painted on to your skin with a brush, you can get stencils that are placed over your skin and then the ink is airbrushed on and then there is the decal tattoo that you just stick on. Thanks to improvements in modern inks these temporary tattoos can last up to two weeks.So, if after reading all of this you are still convinced to have a tattoo, you are a braver person than I!