Do you do cover ups?

We hear it almost every day, yet to some, it doesn’t always sink in until it sank in… Every day our shop receives emails, phone calls and visits from enraged or embarrassed clients who ask the inevitable question:” Do you do cover-ups bro?”. Some people don’t like their old tattoos so much anymore; some are willing to take an industrial cheese grater to the area. These tattoos are actually very common but almost always stem from either having a tattoo done by your cousin's kinda mechanic friend (Frankie), for almost nothing, or you realised that it was never a cool tattoo and that life quotes you thought were pretty smart now makes you sound like a dumb ass. We put together a list of the most frequently requested cover-ups.

The Dolphin

Many tattoos go hand in hand with a kind of trend, one of these can be found in this blog. One of these little bursts of creativity and good ideas is the dolphin tattoo, usually on the lower hip and adorned by juvenile teenagers on their matric holiday in Margate.

Barbed Wire

Before there were hard-core gym bros, there was the hard-core 90’s off-cut T-shirt bro. Funny enough, this tattoo was (In my opinion), inspired by the hit movie “Barbed Wire – Pamela Anderson” and as it turned out, not a lot of girls got this tattoo. Once the 90s bro’s started to catch on that every other 90”s bro had a tattoo like this, the requests for cover-ups started to roll in.

The Foreign Character

I never really understood why you would want a phrase of some sort tattooed on you in the way of a foreign character. Chinese characters were very big in the 90s and almost everyone got one. Let’s just remember that there was an abundance of things in the 90s that we thought were cool and in fact never were. Unlike the mullet hairstyle and dorky-looking hipster glasses, I don’t think that the Chinese symbol for love (actual meaning – ball sack), will ever make a comeback.

Bae’s Name

Having your weekend crush’s name tattooed on you has never been, and never will be a good idea. Unless it’s your beloved cookie-baking grandma or your wife of 30 years, don’t do it. As tattoo artists, we always try and sway your brilliant idea of getting that girl's name on your chest as we know that the tattoo will probably last longer than the relationship.

Stars!

Just leave them where they belong, in the sky!

Butterfly

Ah yes, the butterfly; a favourite amongst teenage girls and older ladies (first tattoos) alike. These days, we have seen some pretty amazing and realistic-looking butterfly tattoos done. Most of them however are mere fixer-uppers of old, faded tattoos. With the current trend of realistic, drop-shadowed watercolour tattoos; these butterflies can actually look quite cool…

Star Signs

“Maybe a star sign?”, usually follows the remark “I don’t really know what I want”. This is also, almost always said while in a tattoo shop. Along with a name tattoo, these zodiac signs are most often the choice of a tattoo we like to call “The Validating Tattoo”. I wonder if they still believe in astrology once they get it covered up.

Language

If you do not speak the language, don’t get it tattooed! A simple rule of thumb: Google is the worst translator you can find as it doesn’t seem to give a damn about tenses or context. The best thing to do (if you absolutely have to), is to get a person who is fluent in your chosen vernacular to translate the quote for you. That is still however not to say that your Arabic translator buddy will take kindly to a skinny white chick getting an inspirational quote in his mother tongue.

Tribal

You are not from a tribe! Do not get a tribal tattoo!