Tattoos have become a pretty normal thing these days. All kinds of folks get them. It almost seems that the tattooed are in the majority, while the blank-slated folks are falling into an even smaller minority.
I know elementary school teachers that have tattoos, moms that have tattoos, and white-collar business folk that have tattoos. Heck, even I have tattoos, and I'm afraid to jaywalk for fear of getting in trouble.
What I'm trying to say is that getting inked isn't just for the toughest of the tough anymore. It's simply a great way to express yourself or to keep a beautiful piece of meaningful art with you at all times.
But, there are still some risks involved. You always want to research your artist before you book with them to make sure you like their style, and you want to make sure you know how to take care of it so it heals properly.
You also want to make sure that the artist knows exactly what you want before they put the ink in your skin. These 14 stories show exactly what can result if you don't keep a keen eye. Luckily, most of them turned out alright in the end!
Do you have any tattoo horror stories? Hopefully, if you do, it's just something to laugh at now.
1.
"Some guy came in and asked for an anchor through the air force symbol, and his and his brother's initials. So I drew up the design, showed him, he approved it. I put the stencil on him, told him to make sure everything looked right, gave him some time to make sure. We do the tattoo, and I tell him to check it out, and he says 'Oh, my brother's initials are B.D.C. not V.D.C, that's wrong.'" – taraquinntattoos
2.
"My dad wanted my name, my mom's name, and my sister's name. The dude misspelled my name. He misspelled Josh. Spelled it Jush. When my dad noticed it, he just had him make the u an o but now I am forever known to my family as Jush." – MotherPucker1216
3.
"I let my cousin (who is a new apprentice artist) do some nautical stars on my chest for practice. He filled in one of the wrong points and just stopped, got wide-eyed for a few seconds, and just whispered 'I'm so sorry.' I wasn't too concerned until he immediately messed up again." – Kairatechop
4.
"My friend, who is an amazing tattoo artist, was working on a flower on my arm and suddenly said, 'Oops….' and I'm like 'JAMES, you can't say oops while you're tattooing me,' and he laughed and showed me a little bump in the outline. It was fixed by adding speckles to the petals to make it look like a bump that happened on purpose." – blackbeltnerd
5.
"I watched my shop's apprentice almost die because he tattooed 'mean jean' instead of 'mean Gene' on a pissed off biker guy. I have no idea how it was fixed, it was big block lettering on the backs of his biceps. I watched the man approve the spelling three times…" – JSqueaks
6.
"I saw a girl with 'housewife' tattooed on the back of her neck in Kanji. I commented that that was a cool avant garde bit of work and she got all confused. Turns out she requested 'wild girl' and got messed with somewhere along the way. This was like 2001, so it might have been hard to look up at the time, who knows." – elhoffgrande
7.
"He rode a Harley, and wanted the Harley eagle and shield on his arm. So the artist found an ad in Easyriders and freehanded a stencil. It looked pretty nice, so he did the tattoo. The biker's brother came over the next day and said 'Hey, doesn't Harly have an E in it?'" – cryptonautic
8.
"My cousin has a tattoo on her upper back with beautiful feathers falling over light blue, with the words 'Carpe Deim' over them. Everyone in the family makes fun of it." – PatrickBecerra
9.
"My aunt got an old-fashioned compass tattooed onto her shoulder blade because she travels a lot. The East and West are flipped, with the E being backwards. Fortunately my aunt thought it was fitting." – ThePrussianGrippe
10.
"Some guy came in with a pic of his son and said he wanted a tattoo on his shoulder of him. The problem is I made the eyes WAY too big. It looked less like a normal human being and more like some messed up ET hybrid. He didn't really say anything about it but it still haunts my dreams" – oahomg
11.
"This tough, biker looking guy came in and asked for a tattoo of a skull wrapped in thorns. Now, usually when I do thorns of any sort, a rose accompanies it. I guess I was super nervous and in the zone because I sure did draw a skull wrapped in two roses on his back. Needless to say, he was pissed. I haven't had any mistakes at all since then. One mess up definitely straightens you out." – ShelbyDallas
12.
"An old friend posted on Facebook a tattoo he had done on a girl. It was just a simple peace sign. Problem was he had missed a line and tattooed the Mercedes-Benz symbol on her instead. Neither noticed until it was posted on Facebook and someone commented on it." – cathymeowmeow
13.
"Kid walks in asking for a pinup girl with bare feet, tattoo artist hears 'bear' feet. Kid ends up with a pinup girl with huge furry bear feet, claws and all." – cheezych
14.
"Spelled 'Philippians…' 'Philippines.' Oops, he cried, I cried. We covered it with huge praying hands with a dark background." – sweetappohs
The mark of a great artist is one who makes their mistakes look as if they were done on purpose. After all, no one is actually perfect — not even tattoo artists!
Do you have any tattoo horror stories? Let us know in the comments and please SHARE with family and friends to see if they have any embarrassing tattoo mistakes!
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
