Getting your first tattoo can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially if you have other people who have had them done telling you all sorts of stories. And also, you realize that it will hurt and you may have gone through all that pain for nothing if the tattoo is not how you expected it to turn out or you’ll get bored of it after some time.
So, because of all those fears and various stories told, tattoo artists have to deal with some unexpected situations of clients crying, fainting or even getting sick. Reddit user ArthurThyKing wanted to hear these kinds of stories from a tattoo artist’s view and asked “Tattoo artists of Reddit, who was your worst ‘tattoo virgin?’”
The thread got popular in the subreddit with 47.5k people upvoting it and over 6k people commenting. Not only tattoo artists joined the thread, but also other people who heard stories and some ‘tattoo virgins’ themselves who felt that they caused inconvenience for the artist.
So enjoy this list and upvote the stories you liked the most. Also, it would be awesome if you shared your own experiences in the comments!
The photos in the article are not the actual photos and are there for illustrative purposes only.
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So she was technically never an actual client, but I hat a teenage girl, about 16 years old come in once. She wanted a tattoo of a rose on the side of her neck. Now I’m certainly not going to even entertain a neck tattoo for a teenager period, but she didn’t even bother to bring a parent with her to sign for her so it went from a certain no to and absolute never in a million years. She got pretty upset and made a scene in our front area and I told her to leave. After a lot of arguing she finally left, but not before making some idle threat. Other than sharing the story with my coworkers over beers later and having a laugh at her audacity I think no more of it. Until the following week when an incredibly angry middle aged woman comes barging into the shop screaming how she is going to have us all shut down and sent to jail. Everybody in the shop was pretty confused and after we got her to stop screaming at all of us we finally got it out of her why she was so angry. Apparently her daughter had went out and got a neck tattoo without her knowledge. It was around then that I recognized the girl from the week before peaking in our front windows. It all clicked. She had found some sketchy artist in a kitchen to tattoo the rose on her neck that I said no to. I told the mother to call her daughter in and her daughter pointed to me and told her Mom I was the one who did it. The tattoo was terribly done to say the least so the Mom definitely had several reasons to be so livid. She started getting upset again and yelling about how this was going to get me fired and sent to jail, etc. I let her yell until she had calmed down enough to listen. Then I explained to her how the week before I had told her daughter outright that I wouldn’t give her a neck tattoo. Her daughter screamed that I was a liar and Mom started up with another round of yelling, this time about how I was calling her daughter a liar. It was around this time that I just decided to point to our CCTV camera in the front area until the mother noticed what I was doing and stopped. I told her if she would like to, she could review the footage of me denying her daughter, the temper tantrum, and then her daughter leaving the shop. We usually keep footage for a week or two and then delete it so I knew it should still be on the computer. Her daughter started looking pretty nervous around this time, but she didn’t say anything. Meanwhile I find the footage from the day and Mom watches the entire interaction that I described go down. Then with the coldest look of anger, betrayal and disappointment she turns to her daughter. She takes her outside of the shop quietly and then screams at her outside for basically everything that has just happened, and how humiliating it all has been. After a bit the daughter comes in and gives me a very sarcastic apology and then leaves. Now at this time I was still willing to tattoo minors with parental consent, but I’d been having a lot of s****y dealings with them and occasionally their parents. I had been considering a no minors at all policy, but this experience solidified that in my mind. Aside from 1 or 2 exceptions I haven’t tattooed any minors for the last 13 years now.
Not an artist, but I’m a receptionist at a pretty popular tattoo shop in my town. I’ve seen quite a few people who had no business getting tattooed, but by far my favorite was this one guy who wanted to get some script tattooed behind his ear. He had come in before to get priced out, but absolutely refused to make an appointment and drop a deposit. He came back a few days later as a walk in, so we squeezed him in that day. He was a mess getting done lol; shaking, sweating and basically crying in the chair. The tattoo itself took maybe 15 minutes. Well the reason why this dude refused to put a deposit down was because he planned on getting tatted and leaving without paying.
As soon as the artist put saniderm on his tattoo, he jumped up out of the chair and bolted for the front door. Then promptly passed out as he ran through the lobby lmfao. He ended up breaking his nose as he hit the ground, and we called the cops. The best part was watching this dude cry like a baby because he was just a few days from getting out of the military and local PD notified his command. Best shift ever.
Oh wow, reading this thread is bringing up some repressed client memories. My worst one by far, though, was about five years ago when I was apprenticing in a college town. This girl came in with her boyfriend for a traditional butterfly above her elbow, I was still super new so it took me way longer than it should have (maybe 2hrs). I lay her down on her stomach with her arm bent at her side—this is relevant later.
Anyway, we start tattooing and within maybe 10 mins she starts getting a string of texts from her freshman friends, telling her they’re essentially ousting her from their group and they don’t want her to contact them again. Super mean stuff, obviously she’s upset. As she’s relating all this to her BF, she starts crying, then full on sobbing. I asked her if she wanted to stop, but she insisted on me continuing, and I felt too awkward to counter her.
She continued to sob on and off for probably another hour, while I just kept plugging away at this dumb little tattoo. At this point she had cried so much that her tears had gathered where her arm was pressed against the massage table and had started to spill over into my lap. So I’m feeling uncomfortable as hell, and now also damp. THEN, as I’m within 30 mins or so of finishing, she begins whimpering, then moaning…loudly. At one point she tells the BF “this is more intense than a**l” and I wanted to die. As soon as I finished and checked her out, my coworkers (who had all been waiting on me to close) were like “what the actual f**k was going on, and why did you keep going??” But in the moment, all I could think was to finish the tattoo asap.
To her credit, she came back (a year later!) and told me she had been too embarrassed to come back but loved the butterfly and wanted another tattoo from me. Her second session was pleasant and without incident.
This girl’s first tattoo, and my first paying customer (I tattooed people for free during my apprenticeship.)
She wants a star outline on the side of her heel below the ankle. She’s a bit nervous, so I allow two of her friends to come in the room with us.
I start the tattoo and immediately she jerks away super hard. I warn her not to do that and try to relax. We start again and she jerks her foot. The two lines I’ve done now look like S**T and I’m already pissed/freaking out inside.
I get her two friends to help hold down her foot and she continues to jerk around and at one point KICKS ME RIGHT IN THE JAW.
Needless to say her tattoo looked like s**t and I was crestfallen. I called my mentor after work crying that I ruined my first tattoo on a client and she kicked me in the face to which he said “Wait, what?? Nah f**k that, it’s not your fault. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”
Been tattooing 13 years now and still love every minute! Got way crazier stories under my belt since that kick in the face.
A friend who had never had a tattoo before wanted one on her ankle and was adamant about that. I told her several times that the ankle is a very not fun location, and asked her if maybe she’d prefer the shoulder instead. She insisted on the ankle. Okay then. The moment the needle touched her she hollered. You sure you want to keep going I asked? She said yes. That was the loudest appointment I ever had but to her credit she made it through.
One shop I worked at we had a couple come in on the day we did $100 two inch by two inch tattoos, they both were getting these small triceratops outline tattoos behind their ears, nothing too crazy or detailed so maybe about 15 minutes each in the chair at most.
The guy is losing his mind, he’s hyperventilating, laughing, jumping up and down and yelling questions at all of us, visually very nervous. He tells one of our apprentices that this is his first tattoo and keeps asking them how bad it hurts over and over again, the owner went into the back and grabbed an ammonia packet, worried the guy would pass out the second needle touched skin.
Turns out it was this couples first date, he had told her he was impulsive and she tried to call his bluff and suggested they get matching tattoos. To his credit he got the tattoo and didn’t pass out, paid for them both too!
Not the worst client. But just an unfortunate event. The apprentice at my shop who had only been tattooing for a little under a year was tattooing this girls wrist recently, her first tattoo the word “undefeated”. Gets the tattoo, it goes smoothly, she likes it, walks to the lobby, shows her dad, he likes it. Walks back to get bandaged up, gets bandaged, they walk back to the counter as he’s explaining aftercare she blacks out. Falls back hits her head on a giant painting hanging on the wall (an ed hardy original) the painting falls, glass breaks. He runs over picks her up and is checking the back of her head. Realizes a giant piece of glass had punctured her shoulder/trap. Emt comes, tell her she needs stitches, they end up having to take her to the emergency room where she got 6 stitches. The next week the girl brought him a giant tub of cookies. She wasn’t the worst, but it was an incredibly unfortunate experience for the both of them. His first time having someone pass out and her being “defeated”.
I’ll take this one. I had a client who got a Jesus fish with Greek letters on his chest. I put the stencil on, he looks down says “looks good” and we do the tattoo. Guy sits like a CHAMP through his entire first tattoo. I finish up after about 45 minutes, he checks it out in the mirror and immediately goes pale, starts to sweat and sits down. Dude looks at me and says “it’s BACKWARDS!” All shook. I look at his tattoo, look at him on the floor, look at the mirror and tell the guy “ I’m gonna take a photo of it for you to see, because you don’t know how mirrors work.” A couple minutes go by as I’m handing the dude paper towels, The guy stands up all quick and try’s to play it off like he was just messing with me even though for a minute there, there was a corpse on my studio floor….
Not a tattoo artist but my friend tells this story had to share here.
So he went to the pharmacy to get some prescription filled in North Carolina. They tell him it’s going to take about 1 hour to fill and to come back later.
So he walks out of the strip mall and the next place over is a tattoo shop. He goes in and asks for a random tattoo.
They tell him it’s going to take about 15 minutes to do the drawing and about. And about 30 to tattoo it on him.
He asks what they can do right now instantly, and they tell him they can pierce his nipples.
Within one hour he gets both nips pierced, a pretty sweet tattoo and his prescription filled all in one regular Tuesday afternoon.
Had a 19 year old lad in the studio, he wanted “Laura” in large letters on his forearm. I took my time to quiz him, turns out Laura was his sweetheart. I also spent a LOOOONG time explaining that tattoos are for life, and girlfriends come and go. He remained adamant, and clearly explained that if I didn’t do it, he had a friend with a “tattoo gun” who would do it.
So I did it, wrapped it up and explained aftercare. As he left I checked the time, great! 22 minutes to My next client.
22 minutes later my client turned up on perfect time, followed less than a minute later by Mr. Lover boy.
Apparently he’d met Laura at the park who instantly dumped him for being so f*****g stupid, it would appear she wasn’t as in love with him as he assumed.
22 minutes from tattoo to requesting a cover up…
Mine was a young lady who wanted a semicolon tattoo on her wrist. Maybe 1inx2in, black ink, no preference on font. Easy enough, and I had the stencil all ready to go before she even came in.
I was expecting a 15 min job max, so I gave her a pretty cheap quote.
Anyway, she turns up for her appt and she’s very nervous. I do my normal, “it’s about as painful as a cat scratch, nothing to panic about!” speech, and she informs me that she’s already taken a strong painkiller, and would like the specialist numbing spray as well.
Uhh, OK. That’s an extra £30. She agrees. Spray goes on, stencil goes on, we’re ready.
I don’t even make contact with her skin before she starts making a very loud, high pitched whine. I try and calm her down again, and tell her that she can have a few mins to get her courage up if she wants, but 99% of the time, the anxiety of getting a tattoo is usually worse than actually getting one.
Bearing in mind, the parlour at the time had 4 other artists, all with customers, all staring at her.
She just kept putting it off. She’d say OK, I’d turn on the gun, and she’d freak out again. After an hour I told her that I was expecting another client, and she could reschedule if she wanted. She just bolts out the door, didn’t even pay for the numbing spray.
To this day, I can’t quite believe how dramatic she made the whole thing.
A bit different, but I was the front counter person for a tattoo store. I was basically just there to look hot, but I was still too young to realize that’s why I had been hired. I had a few tattoos but zero visible while I was working.
Since I’m at the front desk I’m also the DJ for the place, in charge of the music playlist. Anyway, one day I’m doing my college HW, playing some elliot smith and before I know it the store is in ‘after hours’ (aka no new clients, but current tattoo sessions can go on as long as they need to). This guy is getting his neck tattood and he taps the artist for a time out, turns to me, and goes, ‘shut this p****y s**t off the f**k right now and play some death metal or I’m walking out of here with half a bobcat on my neck and no money for your boy’…so I changed the music lol. He was definitely only 1/4 joking.
Had someone come in asking if they can bring their emotional support animal. Usually this is kind of iffy because it could be a sanitation risk, but we made exemptions for good dogs. Found out the emotional support animal was a 3 foot long snake. Turned down instantly.
So many people passing out, high on painkillers before their appointment, taking continuous videos and posting how “inked” they were with their new ankle beach wave, or even one person tipping me in expired Subway coupons.
Just be cool and calm while getting tattooed and everything will go smoothly.
Not an artist, but just got my first tattoo and asked her this question! She had a woman come in with her boyfriend to get her tattoo. The lady screamed after the needle first came down and told her boyfriend that she was going to have to bite him to cope with the pain. Chomped on his arm the whole time while moan/screaming. My artist told me she thinks it was some weird kink thing that she did not consent to participate in.
