Our apologies for the lack of posting. The past six weeks have been hectic: The Big Move combined with The Great Apartment Hunt and The Depressing Job Hunt have culminated in various degrees of success. We’re moved in, Alex has started in his program and is busy with school, while I am working 40 hours a week for the first time in four years and loathing every minute of it. Granted, those 40 hours are spent on my feet serving people coffee (and, likely as not, various animal products with that coffee), so I feel like I have some right to be exhausted at the end of every day. But I digress.

At the end of the summer before I left Salt Lake for Philadelphia (see: The Big Move), I decided to take the plunge on my first vegan themed tattoo. It was actually my first time getting tattooed since going vegan, and thus doubly important because I had a lot more to think about in terms of who should do it, where to get it done, and how to care for it. Many people are unaware that tattoos can be “un-vegan”, but like pretty much everything else in the world (hello, condoms?!) vegans need to put a little extra thought into the experience.

This piece was designed around a quote from Tom Regan. I’ve always loved script, and I’ve always loved swallow tattoos, so the choice to combine them gave me two things I loved in one. It was a great experience and I’ll certainly be getting some more script at some point because this turned out fabulously beautiful. I love the colors dearly, I love the theme more, and most of all I love that I can add to it! (Eventually I’ll be adding sky and clouds behind the bird and script, and hopefully getting another bird and sky on the other foot).

I debated long and hard about whether or not to get this piece on my foot as opposed to somewhere else. Unlike everything else I have, it isn’t so easy to cover up. The stereotype of vegans as tattoo-havin’ hooligans isn’t my favorite, because a) not all vegans have tattoos by a long shot and b) who says tattoo = hooligan? I find being stereotyped as anything frustrating, and this particular stereotype seems to cause people to categorize one as unintelligent and thus not worth listening to. In the long run I decided that it was still coverable enough.

Some (vegan) things to consider before you get your tattoo:

What do I want?

Making the commitment to my first vegan-themed tattoo was extremely exciting, but I do have two other non-vegan (themed) tattoos that I had first. What you want will really depend on WHO you are and what you love. Tattoo styles run the gamut from flash (traditional) tattoos to extremely realistic portraits, depending on who your artist is and what you’re looking for. One thing any good tattoo aficionado will tell you is make absolutely, positively, 100%, never-gonna-look-back, certain that you get exactly what you want. You have to be ready to commit for life, so make sure you love it. Most of the time it helps to take your artists a reference picture or two and a couple ideas, then talk about what you want. Your artist should be able to draw you a custom piece that incorporates the themes, ideas and styles you specify - within reason. A good artist will do her/his best to accommodate all your wishes, while still being able to tell you what ideas are realistic and what aren’t. For example, my original plan for my tattoo was much, much smaller. CJ and I talked about it and I realized there was no way that I could get everything I wanted in detail and go smaller, so I had to make a choice. Giving your artist some creative leeway usually turns out better results, but if you really want EXACTLY what you’ve shown them, don’t be afraid to say so.

Two things I’ve always loved for vegan-themed tattoos are portraits and script. Portraits allow us to immortalize our non-human friends in all their wonder, and script lets us tell people that we’re vegan and DAMMIT, we’re proud. If you’re interested in getting a portrait of a specific animal, make sure you bring a picture if possible - if you can, bring one taken especially for the occasion with good lighting and any specific pose you want, but if you can’t, pick a picture you love. If you’re interested in a more non-specific portrait, bring in several samples. If you’re getting script, first, find someone who specialized in it if possible. Second, don’t tell them exactly what kind of script to use - it’ll turn out better if you let them take care of it. DO tell them if you want lots of filigree, specific capitalization, or if you want to change anything.

If you don’t know what you want that well, it’s usually best to wait. Inspiration will come - someday - and you’ll be happy you did.

Who is going to do it?

Picking your tattoo artist should be something like picking your life partner. After all, the art they put on your skin is going to be with you for, well, ever. (For those of you thinking you can just get your art removed in 10 years, you should reconsider getting one at all). Each artist has a unique style, and different strengths and weaknesses. The best way to get what you want is to do your research and view as many examples as you can lay your hands on. Do you want a vegan artist? While they do exist, it can be difficult to find one, and it may be better to get something you love by a non-vegan (using vegan ink and products, of course) than something you’re not sure about from a vegan. If you’re lucky enough to live in Portland or NYC, then you have access to all-vegan shops, but otherwise you may have to compromise or be willing to do a lot of asking around. I’ve found vegan artists by simply asking people with statement-making ink where they got theirs done.

Vegan Ink?

Tattoo ink is made of pigment particles suspended in a medium. That means there are two parts that can be non-vegan: the particles and the medium. Ingredients in non-vegan inks can include yummy things like charred bone shards and animal fat, which is one of the reasons I think it’s so important to make sure you do get vegan ink. After all, you don’t want to walk around with little pieces of someone in your skin for the rest of your life.

So how does one procure vegan ink? There are several commercially made and widely used inks on the market - you can start by asking for them by name. They are:

• Eternal
• Starbright
• SkinCandy
• Classic
• Stable
• Intenze
• Waverly
• Unique (except black, which is bone-black and contains bone shards)

Many artists also use their own, homemade ink (the artists at the shop where I’ve had all my tattoos done do). If your tattoo artist mixes her/his own ink and doesn’t know if the ingredients are vegan, you can always have them give you a list of what they use and check it for them. Luckily for me, Salt Lake has a large (or at least vocal) vegan population and CJ was able to tell me right off the bat that the ink was safe. Phew!

Sometimes non-vegan initiated artists do get a little annoyed when you ask a thousand questions about their ink. On this go-round, I really wanted to go to an amazing artist who does extremely beautiful and detailed work. Alex’s sister and her boyfriend happened to be going in for their appointments, and offered to ask him if his ink was vegan. After a couple calls back and forth, we finally had him give us a list of inks he used to check against the vegan list, but at this point he had pretty much made up his mind not to take me on as a client. If you’re unsure of your selected artist’s feelings, go armed with information and make the process as painless as possible for her/him.

Anything else?

You bet. First of all, there are a myriad of products used during and after the actual tattooing process at the shop that may or may not be vegan. How far you want to take this is your prerogative: if you are uncomfortable using any non-vegan products, you may want to do you best to secure a vegan artist or go to a totally vegan shop. At the very least, you can ask about items like the razors they use to shave the skin in preparation, the solution used to moisten your skin for the transfer, the solution used during the actual tattooing to keep the needle sliding in and out, and any ointment they use on your skin after the tattoo is finished. The bottom line is that much like most things in the world, it can be very difficult to make certain everything that touches you during this process is totally vegan. Where you draw the line depends on you.

After care!

Find vegan aftercare products can be a odyssey. Most of the ointments recommended by tattoo artists (Aquaphor, A&D etc.) contain lanolin or beeswax by virtue of being non-alcoholic. Boo that. While really any vegan lotion will do, you really want a lotion that doesn’t contain alcohol. You also want a very gentle soap for cleaning. This go-round, I used a combination of Black Cat aftercare products (which RAWK and are not that expensive), Jason Vitamin E lotion, and vegetable based soap from a variety of sources. Products meant specifically for tattoo aftercare are easier to use for the early stages of healing because they tend to adhere and stay put, better protecting the tattoo and keeping it moist longer. Once healing is over, you can go back to your normal vegan lotion, although you should always always make sure to apply lotion to your tattoo once daily and to lather on the sunscreen if it’s going to be exposed to the sun (Merry Hempsters makes a nice lotion/sunscreen combo for tattoos that comes in handy stick form).