Thinking of getting a tattoo? Make sure it's the right one

Cover-ups rectify poorly etched or unwanted ‘tats’ and are now a big part of artists’ business. But not all are fixable, says Jonathan deBurca Butler

JEREMY McConnell is covered in tattoos. The model and former Big Brother housemate got his first when he was a teenager.

“The first one I got was the poem on my chest,” says the 26-year-old. “It was for my mother. It says: ‘I dropped a tear in the ocean. The day I find it is the day I stop missing you.” Since that first, touching tattoo, he has added many more, including a skull on his left thigh, a flaming heart on his chest (naturally), a large butterfly on his throat, and a large wolf on his diaphragm.

There are others, featuring doves, flowers, and several busty women. While the Dubliner’s commitment to body art might seem alarming, it is part of McConnell’s identity. “I’ve always liked tattoos,” he says. “I think the perception of them today is a lot different to years ago. It’s more to do with style now.”

We have been painting symbols on ourselves for centuries. Egyptologists at the British Museum recently discovered a tattoo spelling out the name MIHAXA, Greek for ‘Michael’, on the inner thigh of the remains of a mummified Sudanese woman dating from the 8th century. Archaeologists believe the woman was celebrating the archangel of the same name. In all likelihood, the tattoo was drawn the way it was meant to be, but not all tattoos are.

30-year-old tattoo artist, Georgiana Stoian, does a lot of cover-ups; the industry name for the amending of bad or unwanted tattoos.

“We get a lot of names that people want covered up,” says the Dublin-based Romanian. “Names of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, that kind of thing. I’ve seen lots of weird things, too. You get a lot of weird, drunken tattoos.

Irish reality TV star, Jeremy McConnell. Pictures: Jerry McCarthy/VIPIRELAND.COM

“I once saw a guy with the outline of a palm tree that was terrible. He was in the army and he lost a bet and had to get it done. Then, you get some really big tattoos. I have a tiger that I’m going to cover in a few months that’s really horrible to look at. It was just really badly executed.”

The Channel 4 reality television show, Tattoo Fixers, is about cover-ups. The show takes really bad or embarrassing tattoos and attempts to fix them. The series is popular, but many tattoo artists are not happy with how it represents the procedure. Several articles, written mainly by professional tattooists, have slammed the series for a lack of hygiene and poor execution of cover-ups.

“That programme is probably one of the worst things that has happened to tattooing in the last few years,” says Adrian Borowski, of Reinkarnated, in Dublin. “It gives people the wrong impression. In most cases, a tattoo cover-up can’t be done in one sitting. And not all of them are fixable. People come into to us, saying: ‘I’ve seen that done, it’s easy’. But if you get someone coming in with a black tattoo from twenty years ago, that’s not an easy thing to deal with. One of the worst things is having to tell people that they have to go and get lasering, but sometimes it has to be that way.”

“Usually, a cover-up depends on how much ink is in the skin,” says Georgiana. “The more old ink in the skin, the less space for new ink to cover it. So, sometimes I advise people to get some lasering done, before we can do anything with it. Laser breaks down the ink particles in the skin and makes them small enough that the body can break them down itself and clear the skin.

“Some colours inside the skin are more difficult to break down than others. Usually, light colours are more difficult to break down than darker ones, but if the process is successful, it makes room for the new ink to be introduced into the skin.”

At €100 an hour, getting an unloved tattoo covered is not cheap, particularly if you need several sittings. Georgiana’s advice is simple.

“Be sure that when you are getting the tattoo, you are still going to love it in a few years,” she says. “The decision that you take is going to last forever.

“Some people choose their tattoos because it’s fashionable and cool, and they don’t think that maybe what they got on the day won’t represent them in a few years’ time.

“So you need to make sure that it does and always will.”