Author: Rosalie Hurr

I started out as the one and only Things&Ink intern, fast forward a fair few amazing years and I now run the blog and our social media accounts. You'll more than likely find me scrolling through Instagram (@cupofrosalie) looking for new tattoo artists to share, surrounded by my cats and a cinnamon bun or two.
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Marie Claire: Behind the Ink

Created by Marie Claire magazine, this short film ‘Behind The Ink’ features our editor Alice Snape. The film pushes the boundaries of mainstream beauty media and is a huge step forward for how women with tattoos are represented. A really well-made film by Marie Claire magazine. 

Big thanks to Marie Claire‘s Senior Beauty Editor and producer of this film Anita Bhagwandas.

Alice Snape Marie Claire Magazine
Our editor Alice Snape talks about women and tattoos to Marie Claire magazine.

 

The short film features five women including:

Things&Ink columnist, salon owner, ReeRee Rockette (@reereerockette), talking about how her tattoos make her feel in terms of body confidence and when she’s online dating by exploring the common perceptions of tattooed women.

Mary Kate Trevaskis (@marycupkate) is the Communications Director at Smashbox Cosmetics and Bumble and Bumble. She talks about her love of ink and how she’s continued to grow her collection of body art, despite working at a senior level in very corporate environment.

Alice Snape (@thingsandink) is the Founding Editor of the Things&Ink magazine. Traditional tattoo magazines tend to use women to ‘sell’ their magazines to a largely male readership, but Things&Ink which is aimed at both men and women, explores tattoo culture with style and intelligence.

Katie Parsons (@katieparsons) is a Kerrang! Radio DJ and Social Media Strategist. When Katie got married last year she chose to embrace her large chest piece rather than cover it up as many brides might. She explores the relationship between her body and her body art.

Tracy D (@tracydtattoos) is an in-demand London-based tattooist (and cover star of the art issue) who talks about her decision to enter into a male dominated profession – and she gets her tattoo needle into Anita Bhagwandas, Senior Beauty Editor.

Charley Bezer (@charleybezer) is Head of PR at Live Nation, and discusses how her tattoos have made her feel in a male-dominated industry.

  

 

What do you think of this film? A positive step forward for mainstream media?

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One Day Young: Mothers and Babies

Photographer Jenny Lewis has created a collection of photographs showing mothers and their babies, one day after the birth. These portraits have been published as a book by Hoxton Mini Press titled One Day Young.

It’s really quite simple — I wanted to tell a story about the strength and resilience of women post-childbirth that I feel goes largely unacknowledged in today’s world. To reassure women that childbirth is ok; yes it’s painful but it is a positive pain, one that has purpose and is just part of the journey, a rite of passage into motherhood. To make visible other emotions that are far more powerful: the joy, the overwhelming love and the triumphant victory every new mother feels. In my mind this is the supportive message we should be passing on to future generations rather than paralysing them with fear.

Very early on in the project I knew I wanted to concentrate on the first twenty-four hours, when a woman’s body is engulfed by hormones, to capture the unrelenting physicality of the moment, straight from the battlefield. Sweat still glistening on the mothers’ skin, the translucent umbilical cord, freshly severed, and wide-eyed wonder as the women come to terms with the magnitude of what they have achieved and survived.

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Saffron Reichenbacker at Axios Tattoo

Saffron Reichenbacker solo exhibition at Axios Tattoo studio.
Private View: Friday 17th July, 6 – 8:30pm
1 Hove Park Villas, BN3 6HP, Hove
Axios Tattoo studio opening hours: 10am – 5:30pm, Tuesday – Saturday
Exhibition runs until 3rd August.

Saffron Reichenbacker is a Brighton based artist inspired by a dream world of silver screen vampires and Weimar Berlin ghosts. She works primarily with ink sketches, which are then scanned and developed digitally. Using strong lines and bold colours, her pieces commonly take the form of imagined portraits. In these, she creates a mood that brings to life her dark dream vision of the 1920s. She loves cats, aerial circus and damn fine coffee.

Follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more art.


Axios Tattoo is run by Ade and Nigel,  the studio creates custom work with a high degree of freehand tattooing. Ade and Nigel are  both artists outside of tattooing, specialising in painting. Axios are unique in that they ‘want the shop to represent artists both inside and outside of the tattooing community, to become a hub for ‘outsider-lowbrow’ artists to show their work’.

Follow Axios on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more art work and tattoos.

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Braille Tattoos

Braille tattoos are rising in popularity and it’s not just for their beautiful aesthetic. These tattoos are a way for people to connect and communicate through skin. Blind or visually impaired people are now able to enjoy tattoos as they can read the designs and words with their fingers. The tattoos are not really tattoos but titanium or plastic beads which are placed under the skin, these stick out like embossed dots, allowing them to be read like braille.

@eliseofranchini

Many people are getting Braille tattoos which are not sub-dermal implantations, purely because they like how they look. These is also a sense that the message is secret to others, very much like tattoos in Arabic or other languages. The words cannot be deciphered by those who do not know the language, but could the message be lost in translation? If one dot is put in the wrong place could the whole meaning be changed?

Do you have a Braille tattoo or would you consider getting one?

Image from Trend Hunter 

 

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Tattoo Removal Cream

PhD student Alec Falkenham at Dalhousie University in Halifax, has been developing a cream that he claims removes tattoos without any pain.

He explains that the cream is cheaper than laser treatments and unlike laser will not cause the skin to blister or scar. The cream simply fades the tattoo over time, although it works best on new tattoos that are less than two years old.

There is still a long way to go and a lot of research still to be done as Alec has only tested the cream on tattooed pig’s ears, he is also unsure of the amount of treatments needed to get rid of a tattoo altogether.

Alec Falkenham, a PhD student at Dalhousie University, says the topical cream he's developing will eventually fade a tattoo away.

Image from www.cbc.ca

Would you use a cream instead of laser treatment?