Lower East Side Tattoo Studios

I have 1 tattoos from them and my son has 1. My first one was hand drawn on paper by the artist. It was a cover up so I gave him creative license to make up whatever design would cover up best. I was happy with the design and he did a great job EXCEPT I had nixed a sunrise in the background and obviously he forgot for a second because I have a light dotted line where the sunrise was on the stensil. He obviosly remembered while doing this because I was left with the light dotted line. The tattoo took 6 hours and is full of colour and only cost $ 250. After it healed, I realized why it was so cheap. After making that dotted line he must have been praying I wouldn’t notice. That was about 10 years ago.
My son went there for a black and grey about 6 years ago. 7 hours — $ 350. The tattoo is not bad but not great and it’s too light coloured. More Grey than black.
I wouldn’t go back and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I have a feeling they hire a lot of tattoo newbies. The only good thing I could say is it’s clean. I never felt like I was going to come out of there with hepatitis.

I won’t ever go here again. They will do a sketch, something outside of their realm, they will claim that they are ‘versatile’ in their drawing, you will get it back, it will be garbage, and look NOTHING AT ALL (not even close!) like the image you presented to them, they will claim its a work of art, and then won’t give you your deposit back when they tell you you will get it back if you ‘cancel’ within 48 hours. I cancelled within 48 hours and then they claimed that I wouldnt’ get it back because you only get a deposit back when you ‘reschedule’ ??? REALLY??? RESCHEDULE? YOU GET A REFUND FOR THAT!!! How does that make ANY sense?
And they’ll get defensive when you tell them its not what you wanted.
REALLY??? Grow up. Be professional for God’s Sake.

I actually got my tattoo here a couple years ago. The place itself is really clean (it even SMELLS clean). The artists are really friendly and patient, taking the time to make sketches of what they can do with what you give them. My tattoo artist, Kelly, was super nice and we chatted the whole time. The only problem I have is that my tattoo was around $ 200 for 5 words… I don’t know if that’s a reasonable price or not because like I said, it was my first, but take from it what you will!