A tattoo artist from the UK has shared the ultimate tattoo taboo while revealing why he’d never let a customer return to him after visiting another artist.
Over the last few decades, tattoos have become a cultural norm and are now worn by 46% of the American public. Though tattoo trends tend to come and go, with Gen Z’s current favorite being Cybersigilism, it seems permanent ink is here to stay.
Why the tattoo artist would refuse to finish a piece
Tattoo artist Jay Hutton, who is most well known for appearing on the UK TV show Tattoo Fixers, has seen it all when it comes to permanently etching art into someone’s skin. On his TV show, Jay did everything from embarrassing cover-ups to tattooing people in extremely painful spots.
“If you get tattooed here, you can never leave… muhahahaha,” he captioned a recent post on TikTok, which has since amassed 3.4 million views and over 160k likes.
Jay explained that if he were to start a tattoo sleeve, he would not finish it if the customer sought further work from a separate tattoo artist.
“If you go somewhere else, you’ve got every right, but if you think I’m gonna carry on finishing that sleeve when you’ve added someone else to it, no,” he explained. “Because when people say that portrait looks sick, and you say Jay Hutton did it, they are going to think I did all the s**t around it as well.”
Jay recalled that exact interaction from a few years ago when a woman entered his shop with a design in mind. She initially said his prices were too steep, and so looked to get the art from someone else. A few months later Jay found himself confronted by the woman again, this time with a desperate request for a coverup.
He added: “Because you’ve gone and had that done by someone who done a terrible job of it, you’ve now come back to me and want me to fix what I would have done good anyway.”
His comments divided internet users
When you really think about it, you wouldn’t request a portrait from a traditional artist and then take it to another painter. Despite this fact, some struggled to understand Jay’s point.
“I get you don’t want to fix it when she’s come to you first. But what if it’s a new one who’s never talked to you before and has a bad tattoo they want to get fixed? Would you do it then?” one person questioned.
Another said: “Imo if I want certain parts with different styles, and one artist isn’t the greatest with one of them I’m going to somebody else for that part.”
In contrast, someone wrote: “He’s right! knows his worth and sticks to it, skill.”
