Inked
“Tattoos last longer than love.”
If tattooing your girlfriend’s name on your arm is what you want, James Zehna said he recommends tattooing a common name.
Just in case.
“Just think in terms of the rest of your life,” he said.
Zehna, a tattoo artist and owner of Sailor Jim’s Electric Tattoo, said the best part of his job is the satisfaction of doing something significant. Besides meeting “really cool people,” Zehna said this job offers him the feeling of accomplishing something. While some tattoo shops may specialize in offering present tattoo trends, Sailor Jim’s has more emphasis on custom work, which Zehna said allows more room for creativity
and expression.
The store, which employs two
full-time tattoo artists, has operated for five years. Besides tattoos, Zehna said the store also
offers body piercing.
The tattooing process can be long, Zehna said, since people’s bodies need to heal during the process. Zehna gives his customers a break after three hours since he said the average threshold of pain for a person lasts that long.
“I get hungry [by that time] anyway,” he said.
With the most popular tattooing age group being 25 to 30 years old, Zehna said each person who comes in has a different idea of how getting a tattoo feels. Some customers have even puked during the tattooing process, he said.
“Expect a little pain,” he said. “But just roll with it.”
One of the most important things Zehna said for students considering getting a tattoo is to doing their research.
“Make sure you’re getting it from a reputable artist,” he said.
Zehna, who has been tattooing since 1996, said the hardest part about tattooing is being careful not to mess up any part of the process.
“You can’t have a mistake,” he said. “When you do, you cry a lot and want to kill yourself.”
The name of Zehna’s tattoo shop stems from his time spent serving in the Navy. Zehna said most tattoo shops were called “sailor so and so”, which seemed to work, so he said he decided it sounded good for his own shop.
“I didn’t want any fruity, hippie name,” he said.
Gina Hamilton, owner of the permanent makeup studio Image Perfect, said creating a name for her business came out of the blue.
“I was running on my treadmill, and I looked down and it read ‘image’ and my brother-in-law worked at Word Perfect and I put Image Treadmill and Word Perfect together, and Image Perfect was born,” she said.
While watching an Oprah Winfrey show, Hamilton said she found her inspiration.
“They showed women with burns on their faces,” Hamilton said. “They re-created their image and gave them a new life by applying makeup and making them look beautiful. I was so inspired. I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to make someone that feels ugly into something that is really beautiful.”
Offering services for permanent makeup, Hamilton, a licensed cosmetologist, said she has been in business more than nine years. She said her youngest client was 16 years old, and her oldest client was 90 years old. Hamilton’s 16-year-old client asked for eyeliner tattooed beneath her eyes because she was allergic to regular makeup. Hamilton said being able to help was very gratifying. She said the best part of her job is seeing the results on each customer’s face.
“I am replacing something a woman has lost,” she said. “You know, when they feel good about themselves and they go out of here feeling a confidence booster. That’s why I love what I do.”
Tattooing, Hamilton said, is the introduction of iron oxides into the dermal layer of the skin. Depending on the amount of collagen in people’s skin and how thin their skin is, Hamilton said it’s good to have at least one touch-up for permanent makeup.
Hamilton said she can tattoo lip liner, eyeliner, eyebrows and full lip color onto her customers. She has even tattooed rings of the nipple for a woman who had been through reconstructive surgery for breast cancer.
“It was so gratifying to be able to help them [feel like women],” Hamilton said.
Most cosmetic tattooing takes a little less than two hours to complete, and Hamilton said there is no bleeding or bruising involved. Tattooing helps “make your expression come alive,” Hamilton said.
“Every woman has beauty,” she said. “It just takes someone special to see it and bring it out.”
For information concerning Sailor Jim’s, located at 47 ?. Main in Logan, call 787-8333. For information concerning Image Perfect, located at 420 Edgewood Place in Providence, call 755-5873.
-britg@cc.usu.edu