Tattoo artists see an increase in customers who are women

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Tattoo artists see an increase in customers who are women
June 6, 2010
BY DOUG HARLOW
Morning Sentinel

SKOWHEGAN -- Tattoo artist Bobby "Honest Bob" Pagliaroli says he's been in the business of body art long enough to know a trend when he sees one: Women are getting tattoos these days more than ever before.

And the designs are bigger, more colorful and with more elaborate designs, says Pagliaroli, 28, resident artist for tattoos and piercings at Skowvegas Tattoos.

Most of his customers these days are women, he says.

"It's like 85 percent," Pagliaroli said. "Why? It makes you feel cooler. A new tattoo definitely make you feel cool. Since I've been tattooing, it's always been more women than men getting tattoos, definitely. It's more acceptable, maybe that's what it's come down to."

It's not like it was "back in the day" when a woman having a tattoo was strictly for biker girls, adds Skowvegas owner Christina Hughes.

"It's not like the cliché anymore where a lot of people felt you're this bad person getting a tattoo and you're not going to heaven," Hughes said. "It's totally not like that now; now it's become more of a lifestyle thing, showing something that you're proud of -- 60-year-old people are getting their first tattoo.

"They get their children's names on them, portraits, things that you can take with you forever. It's a memory that's permanently on your body. You're finding yourself. You want to standout from the rest."

So, is it empowering for a woman to get body art?

Maybe.

"I think women weren't allowed to do everything men were," said Ashleigh Howell, 24, of Bangor, who has five purple stars cascading in a green background along her lower back. "Women couldn't always do what men could do, so when women get a tattoo they get their kids' names, personal stuff; it's more an emotional, personal thing.

"Women are doing a lot more things nowadays in the 21st century -- we do everything men do. I think it is empowering. You paid for it, you made that money, now you're going in, getting a tattoo that'll be there forever. You picked it out and it's something that you want; for me it is, anyway."

The cost of getting a tattoo can get pricey, Pagliaroli said.

"I get a hundred bucks an hour," he said. "A half-sleeve'll cost maybe $500-$800. I do it black and gray first, then put the color over the top; it makes the color not look cartoon."

Spencer Wright, at The Wright Tattoo in Augusta, said his business is about 50 percent men, 50 percent women, but he is seeing more women these days than in years past.

"It's definitely more women now than it was 10 years ago," Wright said. "Everybody, male or female, likes artwork on their body. It's definitely more of an art form now.

"Women used to get just the smaller work, now I'm getting women that are actually doing back pieces and sleeves and huge leg pieces; it was the men getting the big work, but now women are getting just as big of work and multiple settings -- getting the big stuff."

Mike Gibson at Redneck Tattoos on Main Street in Waterville said he, too, is doing more tattoos on women since he started more than 20 years ago.

"I'm doing one right now," Gibson said in a telephone interview, the buzz of the tattoo gun audible in the background. "It's a geisha girl, kind of resting up against an Asian dragon with wings -- kind of just sleeping with the dragon. It's on her breast. It's a custom piece."

Gibson said he doesn't use black outline, but applies full color to make it look more like an oil painting than a tattoo.

"I'd say at least 50 percent of my clientele or a little bit more are women," he said. "They get them for different reasons; just to beautify themselves. They get their lower back tattoos and now the nickname for it is the 'tramp stamp,' which I really don't like; I think it's degrading.

"Mainly a lot of them have got to do with memorials, their kids or something, but they get them for themselves. They're stepping out of the box nowadays; they're going a lot larger, a lot more colorful -- whole legs, sleeves, arm -- large."

Wendy Shelton, 32, of Winterport, sports, among other tattoos, the devil on her left leg and thigh and an angel with the five Chinese elements on her right leg and thigh.

"It's a way to express yourself," Shelton said. "This is me -- I have a good side, a bad side -- the balance of life, good and evil -- and the five elements kind of go with the whole way of life."

Cynthia Graf, 23, of Skowhegan, has a large seascape tattooed on her back -- fish, coral, a floating sting ray, sea horses and turtles. Graf will compete soon at a tattoo convention in Bangor with Pagliaroli.

"My dad and everybody in my family have always had tattoos and it was just something that caught my interest, too," Graf said. "I've always loved the ocean so that's what I wanted."

Tattooartist.com reports that the medical journal "Physician Assistant," which circulates to doctors' offices throughout the country, recently alerted its readers that: "Tattoos were most common among motorcyclists, criminals, gang members, and individuals with psychiatric problems . . . however, these stereotypical associations have changed over the past 20 years . . . tattooing in women has quadrupled, and it is estimated that almost half of the tattoos now being done are on women."

Pagliaroli agrees, saying the stereotypes have fallen by the wayside.

"They are everything from your mother to these girls," he said of the steady flow of female clientele at Skowvegas Tattoo. "We tattoo old ladies, everything; a lot of ladies come in after a divorce or something like that or after they break up because their husband wouldn't let them get a tattoo. And a lot of mid-life crisis, too; it's a big mid-life crisis thing, tattooing, for men, but for women too."