Studio · 5 min read
Talking to your artist about numbing
Some tattooists refuse point blank. Usually they have a good reason — and it's fixable.
Bring up numbing cream in a tattoo studio and you will get a range of reactions from indifference to a flat no. The refusals are not snobbery. They come from experience.
What artists are actually objecting to
- Stencils that slide. Oil- and petroleum-based numbing products leave a film. Stencils will not hold on it, and a stencil that moves mid-session is a ruined tattoo.
- Skin that swells or goes rubbery. Some formulations, particularly heavily vasoconstricted ones, change how the skin takes a needle. It can feel dead and drag.
- Residue. If the client has not wiped it off properly, the artist is now working through a layer of cream.
- Clients who sit too long. A numbed client will happily do eight hours. Their skin will not.
How to have the conversation
Ask when you book, not on the day. Say which product you intend to use and offer to show the ingredient list. "Water-based, wipes off completely, I'll have it off and the skin dry before you stencil" answers three of the four objections in one sentence.
If they still say no, respect it. It is their work and their reputation. Plenty of artists who decline pre-session cream are perfectly happy with a mid-session spray applied by them, on their terms — that is worth asking about separately.
If you are the artist
The fourth objection is the one worth holding firm on. A numbed client will not tell you when they have had enough, because the feedback loop that normally ends a session is switched off. Set the session length yourself and stick to it regardless of how comfortable they say they are.