Only Sailors and Criminals........

To tattoo or not, it's your choice.

20% of all Britain's have chose to ink their skin, with that figure likely to rise steeply in the next 10 years. Strange when it involves a needle puncturing your skin 100 times a second.

Tattoos have been around for hundreds of years in one form or another. The basic technology of the modern twin-coil electromagnetic tattoo machine is still used today that was created in 1891 by Samuel O'Riley, an Irish-American tattooist working out of a barber's shop on Chatham Square in New York. His design simply has two coils of wire wrapped around an iron core, two points, and a bar across the top that plunges down when power is applied to the coils, breaking the circuit, then springs back up again to recommence the cycle. Add a needle and ink, and voila....

Even with only small changes in the technology, the quality and detail of tattoos has improved incredibly in the last 25 years, with any art it's down to the artist to push the boundaries and tattooists are pushing them hard right now. But as fashion moves in cycles, this has seen an increase in traditional tattoos making a return.

Once upon a time, it was a class thing: tattoos were for soldiers, sailors, bikers and criminals. Borderline deviant behaviour. Now they're more common place in day to day life and becoming totally acceptable. 

Some have meanings, some don't. Why do we have them, is it sentiment? Some are unique some are fashion, it really doesn't matter. They're yours and although they cost a pretty penny, pro rata they're great value :) I ask you to consider adding one to your bucket list.

Both of us at S&B have tattoos, you don't have to like them and that's fine, I still like that they divide opinion and hope they always will, they're just another talking point.

Anthony recently had some new art and chose to support local artist, Paige is Andy's neice and a great talent. 6 Hours in the hot seat was plenty of pain for one day.

Before you ask, yes there is a couple of Sauce & Brown designs out in the big wide world as tattoos.