By Ink the Diaspora, Tann Parker

You are either a real ass bitch or a fake ass bitch in these streets. Who cares if your freckles are fake. Cosmetic tattooing has been around for centuries. It’s a risky business that’s why it hasn’t been popularized in the mainstream. You should treat the process of giving yourself tattoo freckles as a scared embellishments.

With any at home tattooing you should make a clean and sterile space to work. The freckle placement should be mapped out in compliment to your face. Making sure each freckle is in their well intended spot. Deciding on color should be as intentional as possible. Don’t just tattoo black dots on your face, over time with sun exposure, you can’t be sure how they will look.

I would avoid pores on your face. […]

Hooray!

Our How to Stick and Poke Tattoo video reached 1/2 Million viewers recently! We strive to educate people on how to do DIY tattooing at home in the safest way possible. History teaches us that “folks are gunna poke.” Through sharing info, we can decrease bacterial infection, decrease spread of disease, and increase empowerment in one’s own body!

We have many videos on many subjects around home tattooing, hand-poking, stick and poking and are working on a few more now. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram to get the latest info.

To view our videos on our site, click on a video comment below. To view on our youtube channel, click here.

We put out a call to our community on social media to share about their pandemic home tattoo experience.  COVID has caused sheltering in place and a rise in at-home activities such stick and poke tattooing. Our sales went WAY up. We were the topic of a VICE article, NEW YORK TIMES article and the Calvary Times! (The Calvary times was great, tbh). Many new artists emerged from the “stay at home” orders implemented around the globe. Here are some pictures and words from a few new hand-poke artists:

Shar, who is @offgridink on Instagram said that our kit made them “fall in love with tattooing” –

which is the sweetest compliment to the kit. Here is more from them:

“I started stick and poke tattooing out of necessity when I moved far out of the city and couldn’t make the trip often for new tattoos. I was also living somewhere very rural […]

Amazon (also, Whole Foods) –  First, they bullied the cute book stores out of our towns, and now they threaten to monopolize and automate online commerce and health food industry into a profit machine for a few executives at the expense of all tax payers.

As a former seller on Amazon, I have my own personal experience on how they “prioritize” the buyers at the expense of the sellers – often small businesses like my own. They force lowering prices (sales) and allow fake trademark violators to sell alongside you. Birkenstock took their products off Amazon for this reason and I have followed suit. I have experienced a loss of sales since leaving Amazon, and it has been difficult to leave as a buyer…that Amazon Prime can be soooo good and easy.

In turning to these alternatives (below) for my personal and business shopping, I have made a commitment to the striking […]