For most laymen when they are searching for a tattoo studio to get their 1st tattoo, they will either seek the coolest looking tattoo shop, or they will just go get a tattoo from the cheapest tattoo parlor they can find. Hmm.. Lets ask ourselves, how many beautiful hotel restaurants' food are actually quite shitty? If you have a university degree would you work a S$5 per hour job?
Many of you may have wonder why FAMILIAR STRANGERS Tattoo Studio is worthy to be rated as one of the best tattoo studio in Singapore, some even question why we are more expensive than other tattoo studios, many new tattooists also want to find out why our colour works are that intense & brilliant, and how the colours manage to stay on for decades.. Well, the answers are simple.. It is all due to our understanding of the tattooing process, our tattooing experience, and us investing in thousands of dollars on quality tattoo equipment/supplies..
Many of you may have wonder why FAMILIAR STRANGERS Tattoo Studio is worthy to be rated as one of the best tattoo studio in Singapore, some even question why we are more expensive than other tattoo studios, many new tattooists also want to find out why our colour works are that intense & brilliant, and how the colours manage to stay on for decades.. Well, the answers are simple.. It is all due to our understanding of the tattooing process, our tattooing experience, and us investing in thousands of dollars on quality tattoo equipment/supplies..
Tattoo Machine
I am not going talk about how beautiful our tattoos are, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am only going to talk about our tattooing process so that you can have a better understanding of what we are doing for you and why we deserve your trust.
The kind of tattooing we are doing is known as electric tattooing, which is using a tattoo machine or "gun" to a novice to tattoo on people's skin. Attached at the front of the tattoo machine are the tattoo needles, the machine will propel the tattoo needles to move up and down, thus pricking the skin to inject tattoo pigments/ink into the skin.
Human skin has a total of 3 layers: Epidermis (composed of 5 sub-layers), Dermis and Subcutaneous tissue. When tattooing, the depth that the tattoo needles should penetrate is the Dermis layer and allow the tattoo pigment to remain in the dermis layer . If the depth is too shallow, it will only penetrate the epidermis sub layers, the tattoo pigment will seem to get into the skin and the tattoo will look good initially, but will fade noticeably after a few days and it may be totally be gone when the tattoo fully heals after 30 days, in the tattoo industry it is known as “bleed outs”. This is because the 5 sub-layers of the Epidermis is constantly growing outward to the top, any tattoo pigment deposited will just be shed back out.
We have many experiences with clients getting tattooed at not well-known tattoo shops in Singapore and neighboring developing countries, due to the cost of tattooing there is much lower. Their tattoos looks great when it is newly done, but after a few days it faded dramatically. Some called up the tattoo shops that tattooed them and the tattooists there simply told them it is because there is a change of weather so the tattoo faded away, which is bullshit ! Only when the clients come to our tattoo studio to spend another few hundred dollars to redo their tattoos till they know the true reason for their failed tattoos.
The kind of tattooing we are doing is known as electric tattooing, which is using a tattoo machine or "gun" to a novice to tattoo on people's skin. Attached at the front of the tattoo machine are the tattoo needles, the machine will propel the tattoo needles to move up and down, thus pricking the skin to inject tattoo pigments/ink into the skin.
Human skin has a total of 3 layers: Epidermis (composed of 5 sub-layers), Dermis and Subcutaneous tissue. When tattooing, the depth that the tattoo needles should penetrate is the Dermis layer and allow the tattoo pigment to remain in the dermis layer . If the depth is too shallow, it will only penetrate the epidermis sub layers, the tattoo pigment will seem to get into the skin and the tattoo will look good initially, but will fade noticeably after a few days and it may be totally be gone when the tattoo fully heals after 30 days, in the tattoo industry it is known as “bleed outs”. This is because the 5 sub-layers of the Epidermis is constantly growing outward to the top, any tattoo pigment deposited will just be shed back out.
We have many experiences with clients getting tattooed at not well-known tattoo shops in Singapore and neighboring developing countries, due to the cost of tattooing there is much lower. Their tattoos looks great when it is newly done, but after a few days it faded dramatically. Some called up the tattoo shops that tattooed them and the tattooists there simply told them it is because there is a change of weather so the tattoo faded away, which is bullshit ! Only when the clients come to our tattoo studio to spend another few hundred dollars to redo their tattoos till they know the true reason for their failed tattoos.
The Skin Layers
So what if the tattoo needles penetrate too deep? Well, the skin will bleed non-stop during tattooing as the needles is now in the dangerous depth of Subcutaneous tissue layer, tattoo pigments will definitely flow into the blood stream and there will be permanent damage to the skin. When the tattoo heals the tattooed area will rise up 1mm -5mm permanently, in medical terms it is known as Keloids but it is in the shape of a tattoo design with some colours in it, one will feel itch and discomfort from the tattoo for the rest of his life.
Lasering will not help, as it will only remove the tattoo pigment and the keloids will remain on the skin, the only treatment available these days is to surgically remove the keloids.. How do I know it? Well, I was a medic serving in a medical center during my military days in the 1990s. Back then NSF servicemen were not well paid yet many are hard up for a tattoo so they got newbie "home artists" to tattoo them and they end up with Keloid Tattoos, when the servicemen came to the medical center to seek treatment, the only thing my medical officers could do was to send them to Singapore's National Skin Center to surgically remove the keloids and in some serious cases the doctors had to perform skin grafting on the servicemen.
Lasering will not help, as it will only remove the tattoo pigment and the keloids will remain on the skin, the only treatment available these days is to surgically remove the keloids.. How do I know it? Well, I was a medic serving in a medical center during my military days in the 1990s. Back then NSF servicemen were not well paid yet many are hard up for a tattoo so they got newbie "home artists" to tattoo them and they end up with Keloid Tattoos, when the servicemen came to the medical center to seek treatment, the only thing my medical officers could do was to send them to Singapore's National Skin Center to surgically remove the keloids and in some serious cases the doctors had to perform skin grafting on the servicemen.
Okay, let's go back to tattooing at the correct depth. As you already know the dermis layer of skin is the only correct depth for the tattoo needles to penetrate, which is between 1mm and 2mm into the skin. But please keep in mind that every person’s skin type is different and there is no exact measure. There is also changes in the depth of the dermis layer for different parts of the body, for example the skin areas in the inner arm, breast, side of the ribs and head is extremely shallow so it is very difficult to tattoo there, thus the cost of tattooing in this areas is much more..
Our tattooists will be able to know where is your dermis layer by touching your skin through years of experience and constant practice. Maintaining a correct needle depth during tattooing is a near impossible task, but in order to be a good and responsible tattooist one must master it. Just imagine during tattooing, our tattooists need to be able to hold a vibrating tattoo machine that weights around 200g - 300g and pricking the needles into your skin at a constant depth for hours. Not only that, our tattooists need to make sure that the lines are straight, the angle of entry is perfect, the shadings have gradient, the colour packs in well, and making sure you keep still during tattooing..
You can do some experiment yourself to understand the difficulty of being a good tattooist, try using a kitchen knife to cut a bunch of bananas at a constant depth of 2 mm for 10 minutes, I assure you there is no way you can do it.. This also explains why the apprenticeship in our tattoo studio takes 1-2 years which is much longer than other tattoo studios or tattoo schools and we only take in 1-2 apprentices every 3 years and our fall out rate is extremely high, over the years almost 90% of our apprentices don't make it as tattooists as we only want the best tattooists in our tattoo studio. I have seen tattoo schools in developing countries offering 2 weeks courses in tattooing and shockingly allow their trainees to tattoo on people only after 2 weeks of training. There are also irresponsible people buying "how to tattoo CD and tattoo kits" to learn how to tattoo in their kitchen and experimenting on their friends. All these in my humble opinion is outright outrageous and a major insult to our professionalism.
With all the above being said, if you are keen in tattooing in other countries or in other tattoo studios, We recommend you to seek a top rated tattoo studio just like us. As to save yourself from regrets, health hazards, embarrassment, pain, waste of time and money. Remember good tattoos are not cheap, if you are a qualified doctor you will not want to work as a hospital janitor and you will want to be paid a doctor's salary.
For those learning how to tattoo, to gain proper experience in tattooing you must spent at least a year doing apprenticeship in a tattoo studio. Notice I used the words "proper experience"? Well, there is no point in getting an apprenticeship in a tattoo studio that do shitty tattoos that cost only S$50, as you will end up doing that kind of tattoos for the rest of your life. Hey, in the good old 1990s when I was tattooing, customers will literally break your arms or legs if you do a shitty tattoo on them. Even when you got an apprenticeship in a good tattoo studio, the master artist must be willing to teach you whatever he knows, you needing to log on to our website to gain tattoo knowledge is actually a good "measure" of his willingness to teach you. If you need quality tattoo equipment you should be prepared to spent at least a few thousand on a reputable tattoo supplier, you must do some background checks on the suppliers you are going to, generally suppliers with at least a 1-2 sole distributorship of tattoo products from Japan or USA are more trustworthy, as the Japanese or American tattoo product manufacturers have strict requirements for their distributorship in terms of honesty, experience in tattooing, number of years running the business, bank statement etc.
Yours Truly,
Whopper Tan
Founder of FAMILIAR STRANGERS Tattoo Studio
2012, Article
Our tattooists will be able to know where is your dermis layer by touching your skin through years of experience and constant practice. Maintaining a correct needle depth during tattooing is a near impossible task, but in order to be a good and responsible tattooist one must master it. Just imagine during tattooing, our tattooists need to be able to hold a vibrating tattoo machine that weights around 200g - 300g and pricking the needles into your skin at a constant depth for hours. Not only that, our tattooists need to make sure that the lines are straight, the angle of entry is perfect, the shadings have gradient, the colour packs in well, and making sure you keep still during tattooing..
You can do some experiment yourself to understand the difficulty of being a good tattooist, try using a kitchen knife to cut a bunch of bananas at a constant depth of 2 mm for 10 minutes, I assure you there is no way you can do it.. This also explains why the apprenticeship in our tattoo studio takes 1-2 years which is much longer than other tattoo studios or tattoo schools and we only take in 1-2 apprentices every 3 years and our fall out rate is extremely high, over the years almost 90% of our apprentices don't make it as tattooists as we only want the best tattooists in our tattoo studio. I have seen tattoo schools in developing countries offering 2 weeks courses in tattooing and shockingly allow their trainees to tattoo on people only after 2 weeks of training. There are also irresponsible people buying "how to tattoo CD and tattoo kits" to learn how to tattoo in their kitchen and experimenting on their friends. All these in my humble opinion is outright outrageous and a major insult to our professionalism.
With all the above being said, if you are keen in tattooing in other countries or in other tattoo studios, We recommend you to seek a top rated tattoo studio just like us. As to save yourself from regrets, health hazards, embarrassment, pain, waste of time and money. Remember good tattoos are not cheap, if you are a qualified doctor you will not want to work as a hospital janitor and you will want to be paid a doctor's salary.
For those learning how to tattoo, to gain proper experience in tattooing you must spent at least a year doing apprenticeship in a tattoo studio. Notice I used the words "proper experience"? Well, there is no point in getting an apprenticeship in a tattoo studio that do shitty tattoos that cost only S$50, as you will end up doing that kind of tattoos for the rest of your life. Hey, in the good old 1990s when I was tattooing, customers will literally break your arms or legs if you do a shitty tattoo on them. Even when you got an apprenticeship in a good tattoo studio, the master artist must be willing to teach you whatever he knows, you needing to log on to our website to gain tattoo knowledge is actually a good "measure" of his willingness to teach you. If you need quality tattoo equipment you should be prepared to spent at least a few thousand on a reputable tattoo supplier, you must do some background checks on the suppliers you are going to, generally suppliers with at least a 1-2 sole distributorship of tattoo products from Japan or USA are more trustworthy, as the Japanese or American tattoo product manufacturers have strict requirements for their distributorship in terms of honesty, experience in tattooing, number of years running the business, bank statement etc.
Yours Truly,
Whopper Tan
Founder of FAMILIAR STRANGERS Tattoo Studio
2012, Article