Stick and poke tattoos are becoming more popular nowadays, especially with many teenagers so anxious to grow up and get a tattoo. A stick and poke tattoo is a painful experience for people with low pain tolerance; it’s literally a needle piercing into their skin. Just like real tattoos, this stays on skin but unlike real tattoos, these could fade. These handmade tattoos are categorized as “stargazing:” a method of rapid dots that are made to look like a constellation. Stick and poke tattoos were around for many decades before the tattoo machine or tattoo guns.

Young teenagers who perform this procedure on themselves have a high chance of getting infections, swelling and even bleeding. Though it is not recommended, some people redo stick and pokes on a daily basis. Some prisoners that don’t have access to a tattoo gun or shop are guilty of this. When doing stick and poke tattoos, people often don’t sterilize the needle or the skin they are piercing. There are many health risks that come with these kinds of tattoos but there are risks to any tattoo. Hand poked tattoos normally heal in a week, if done with caution.

The choice to get a tattoo can be life changing. A life long lingering piece of art on skin comes with big decisions. The design choice can rapidly turn bad if appreciation of the design runs out. Some people make the choice to have their partners name tattooed on their body. If the relationship falls apart, they have to choose between keeping a sad reminder or paying for expensive laser surgery. Some jobs won’t accept people who have visible tattoos in certain places of their body. Places like the military have very strict rules about tattoo placement in action.

No matter what tattoo one gets or where it is located, it will have a sensitivity to their body.

”Think of how a tattoo machine applies the tattoo – the needle is dragged along the skin,” Kristin Collins Jackson wrote in her article 6 Myths About Stick & Poke Tattoos. “With hand poked tattoos it is the exact same action except much slower and instead of dragging it is a rhythmic poke, poke, poke.”  

Getting a tattoo can be a way to let go and bring out the inner self and transform the body into a positive canvas for art. Focus on the aspect of creating new art but still having a clean and safe environment with caution.

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Alexandra Rapp