tattoo story
Tattoo：A Whole New Language
Saturday, December 20th, 2008 | Tattoo Blog | No Comments
Tattoos are how my children’s generation expresses its individuality, which is why they all have one.
I have nothing against tattoos: They’ve been used for centuries to identify which sailors on a particular ship got drunk the night before. But at least those sailors, upon awakening and seeing the name Sheila inked into their shoulders, have the satisfaction of being able to say, “Who the heck is Sheila?”
My children are not sailors, but they are all of the generation who are determined to do to their own flesh what the Exxon Valdez did to the Alaskan coastline.
“You don’t need to draw permanent lines in your skin,” I’ve told them. “Believe me - age will do it for you.”
They roll their eyes at this: Clearly, I don’t know anything.
“It’s how I express my freedom of expression,” my daughter says.
“It’s also how incarcerated felons express their boredom,” I counter. Another eye-roll.
“I’m going to get one that says Tabula Rasa,” she announces. “It’s Latin.”
“You don’t speak Latin!” I respond sharply.
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“You don’t even like Latin music!”
It’s ironic that when I say something intelligent, like “Eventually your tattoo will fade and stretch and look like some sort of skin disease,” my children pretend I’m stupid, but when I say something stupid like “You don’t even like Latin music,” they act like I’ve made a good point.
“I like some Latin music,” my daughter corrects.
Danger “Beauty Tattoo”
Monday, December 15th, 2008 | Tattoo Blog | No Comments
Twenty-eight-year-old office worker Lim recently had an eye-line tattoo. “I would rather call it semi-permanent make up. It’s nothing too scary just injecting brown pigment along the eye-line. You don’t even notice it’s a tattoo,” she said.
“Since the treatment, I do not have to spend extra time putting on eye liner in the morning and still people think I look great,” she explained as to why she underwent the procedure.
However, Lim admitted that she was lucky. She has seen some people with results that weren’t as successful. “I have seen some get swelling around the eyes or the pigment leaving green marks making their face look odd,” she said.
Tattoos are not only for those inking illustrations on their bodies to portray a certain image, or part of a religious or ceremonial rite as in some countries. Tattoos are gaining popularity among women here as a way of adding permanent makeup.
Being tattooed by a tattoo artist is illegal here as it is considered to be a semi-medical treatment and therefore restricted to doctors only. Since the pigment is injected into the skin, it could cause an infection if contaminated needles are used, the procedure is strictly limited to those in the medical profession, however, doctors seldom do so.
Still, people manage to get tattoos from tattoo artists, makeup artists and face masseuses, who illegally perform the procedure.
The Green Consumers Network’s (GCN) national council warned Thursday that more consumers were reporting side effects from undergoing the procedure from unauthorized practitioners. According to its research, among 88 cases of negative reactions to semi-medical treatment between January and September this year, 58 percent were from “beauty tattoos.”
According to the report, women suffering side effects said they could not open their eyes because they were sore from having had eye-line tattoos several times; some suffered from deteriorating eyesight, while others had swollen eyelids due to eyebrow tattooing. Also women experienced inflammation of the lips after applying an ointment to complete a lip line tattoo.
The group said the “victims” of such semi-medical treatment should be aware that the procedures they were undergoing were illegal.
According to a survey of 814 people between 10 and 60, 349 had tattoos, and 27 percent underwent the procedure more than twice, however, they were ignorant of its legal implications.
Some 71 percent, mostly teenagers, were not aware that the treatment was illegal. While 151 said tattooing was safe, 34 out of the 349 said they experienced negative side effects ranging from pain and scarring, and others that needed professional medical treatment.
The GCN council held a debate Thursday to talk about the safety and future direction of tattooing here.
Prof. Cho Hyong-won of Sangji University said the government needs to expand the qualification spectrum for those allowed to perform tattooing, but must put in tighter regulation and management. “There are no proper education courses for the so-called tattoo artists or beauticians who are actually performing the tattooing. The government needs to set up guidelines to regulate them,” he said.
Hann Seung-kyung, spokesman for the Korean Medical Association, said it was mostly teenagers affected by the tattoo boom, citing a medical report released in 1989, and called for a campaign to inform people of the risks involved.
Artilce from www.koreatimes.co.kr
Death-wish Tattoo on Chest
Friday, December 12th, 2008 | Tattoo Blog | 1 Comment
A 79-year-old grandmother in New Zealand has just had her first tattoo – the instruction “Do not resuscitate” emblazoned in capital letters across her chest.
Paula Westoby, who lives in the South Island city of Dunedin, says the message is for the benefit of medical staff in case she is taken ill.
The smartly dressed, middle-class pensioner looked the most unlikely person to be entering a tattooist’s parlour, and confessed to feeling nervous before undergoing the procedure.
“I feel like I’m going into the execution chamber,” she joked. “But if I have a heart attack in the street I don’t want to be resuscitated at my age, and possibly live as a stroke victim for years.
“I just want to be let go, thank you very much.”
After discussing typefaces and point sizes with the tattooist, she emerged half an hour later declaring herself “thrilled” with the result.
She insisted that she expected her unambiguously expressed wishes to be respected by any medical staff who might be called on to treat her.
Ms Westoby, who a few years ago completed a free-fall skydive, is a member of Exit International, a group advocating voluntary euthanasia.
She said she now planned to lobby politicians for a law change within her lifetime to give people “the right to choose for themselves how and when they die”.
Medical staff in New Zealand have a professional and ethical duty to attempt to preserve life.
But even taken at face value, said Professor Donald Evans, of Otago University’s Bioethics Centre in the city, Ms Westoby’s tattoo could create confusion.
“They would be faced with such problems as when did she have it done? Did she have it done under any type of pressure?
“Or has she changed her mind since she had it done?” Professor Evans told TV3 News.
Article from www.telegraph.co.uk
Dr. M’s 25 Days of Deep Sea Christmas: #8 Tattoo
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 | Tattoo Blog | No Comments
Inserting ink into the skin for decorative purposes, identification, a rite of passage, fertility, protection, spirituality, commitment, and status has existed since the Neolithic. The mummified Otzi the Iceman from the 4th or 5th millennium BCE 57 was covered with dots and lines across his lower body. In 2008, the modern tattoo parlor is more than just a drunken escapade for a dolphin and rainbow tattoo, but rather a temple joining one to 7,000+ years of sacred art.
Why are KZ and I into this sacred art? Of course, there is that the ladies love the bad boys. The tattoos probably have contributed to our reputation as a the “the biker gang of science.” However, it is more likely they mark significant events in our lives, our chosen identities, and the things we are spiritually connected to. Unsurprisingly, my one tattoo and many of KZ’s 1000 are ocean themed. There is also plus that it is extremely hard for John Q Public to reconcile a geek inspired tattoo. A tattooed geek? You can hear the gears grinding.
So for number eight our wish list includes more ink. Of course these brands need to be deep-sea themed. The list of potential tats is endless…the Alvin, Osedax, a carnivorous sponge, the carbon cycle, or the topography of Monterey Canyon across the back. I myself am fancying a giant isopod tattoo. We all know you can’t stop with just one!*
*Tattoo ink contains the same additive substance as puppies, Twinkies, and the 1970 Hemi’cuda.
Article from http://blogs.discovery.com/ by Dr. M
