Please read this before you get tattooed
Before you rush off to get yourself the tattoo you've always wanted... consider these few factors beforehand...
Always make sure that you go to a reputable tattoo studio who has a flawless record, a tattoo artist is always recomended, not all tattooists are artists, most of them just trace lines and copy the colours from some designs they bought online, some tattooists cant even draw and at worst cant even tattoo properly. It seems these days that councils are giving out tattoo licences to anyone with an Ebay account, Make sure you check the tattoo artists website and take a good look at their gallery of previous work, if your not quite sure of the work then get someone who has an artistic background to give you their opinion, if you see any bad work then stay clear and try somewhere else as you could end up with a similar tattoo, looking at portrait work is a good example as long as the tattoo artist has photographed the medium (photo of person) they copied from so you can see the likeness.
Never get tattooed by someone who is not registered by the local council, peoples houses have never been registered and are NOT licenced tattoo premises, they contain large amounts of bacteria and dont have a sterile work area used only for tattooing, they don't have an autoclave sterilizer and have no idea of cross contamination or blood born pathogens, this usually ends up with bad work, infected tattoos, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, MRSA or Septicemia, Sepsis, most people that tattoo from their homes are usually unskilled, high risk and doing it for nickels and dimes and couldnt care less if you caught a nasty disease.
Stay safe.