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Tattoo artist reveals one type of tattoo she always refuses for one reason
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Being a tattoo artist is a huge responsibility - people rely on you to correctly mark their body for life, with a design that needs to come out perfectly.
No pressure and all that, but Sydney Mulvaney, a tattooer based in Saginaw, Michigan, understands the importance of getting an ink design just right.
Known on TikTok as @sydneytattoos, the 31-year-old is known for her candid stories and experiences as an artist, which can range from the insightful to the outrageous.
While she has previously admitted to misspelling tattoos and getting the time wrong on a clock design as an apprentice, over a decade later, Sydney is extremely experienced and has seen it all.
But with several years of experience under her belt, the artist has a clear list of do's and don'ts, which she revealed in an exclusive interview with VT.
The one type of tattoo Sydney refuses
When asked about any tattoo designs which she may turn away, she admitted that anything hate speech-related isn't tolerated, but aside from that, she "rarely refuses to do a tattoo."
After 12 years of inking clients, the tattoo artist explained in an honest conversation: "I've gone through some trends.
"Millennials tend to get larger scale pieces - we want sleeves to connect, we want large planned out things, but the Gen Z crowd is getting little sticker style tattoos.
"It's a trend, and it can be cute, but it's so different from what we, as artists, objectively want to see as art," she admitted.
Sydney then admitted: "I think what they maybe shouldn't do is those little designs on fingers and hands, because they usually don't heal as well, especially on the bottoms or the sides of the fingers.
"I always try to sway people away from doing that, especially if they're not heavily tattooed already, because a lot of younger people are getting them on their hands, they're getting them on their neck, they're getting them on their face - these are places where we would call it a job stopper tattoo."
The artist added that she would "stay away" from these kinds of tattoos, adding that you may want to steer clear if "you haven't earned them yet."
Why "job stopper tattoos" aren't the best idea
"If you've got the majority of your body covered, go ahead and get the neck tattoo, get the hand tattoo, but if you don't already have that, you shouldn't be getting tattoos in super visible places, because even though tattoos are more acceptable, they still aren't held as professional in a lot of places," she highlighted.
"The first thing you do when you meet someone is shake their hand, and if you've got tattoos on your hand, they will make a presumption about you, whether it's true or not."
She added that while ink is "more acceptable" in this day and age in the workplace, there's a long way to go until it's fully normalized.
"You should still think about that before you get a bunch of little sticker tats all over your hands and face and neck," the artist further emphasized.
Sydney also warned about getting tattoos that you may not know the true meaning of - a more common occurrence than you'd think.
"I've heard stories of people getting like prison tattoos and not realizing that they had certain meanings, like the elbow tattoo of the spider web, which I think means you killed somebody," the artist shared.
"There's the tear drop on the eye too, but I feel like with the newer generation, Gen Z is getting tattooed differently than older generations."
Tattoo trends change over time
Getting a specific design, like a sticker or even a sleeve, says a lot about when you got the tattoo, according to the expert.
"The thing about trends, tattoo-wise, is they end up time-stamping you in whatever time period that you are in," she pointed out.
"For example, with the tramp stamps from the 90s and early 2000s - whenever you're at the beach, and you see a woman with a tramp stamp, you'll likely know how old she is, because that was around the time they were popular," Sydney said.
She added: "I also love that, because now Gen Z is getting tramp stamps again, they're bringing them back!"
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