Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of tattoos. From hidden fees and touch-ups to the unexpected social and career implications, they break down what you’re really signing up for when you get inked. Whether you're planning your first tattoo or adding to your collection, this episode will help you avoid regrets and make sure your next piece is worth every penny.
Lizzy and Lissa break down the hidden costs – financial and otherwise – of tattoos. From hidden fees and touch-ups to the unexpected social and career implications, they break down what you’re really signing up for when you get inked. Whether you're planning your first tattoo or adding to your collection, this episode will help you avoid regrets and make sure your next piece is worth every penny.
Main Topics
00:00 Would You Get a Face Tattoo?
01:58 Running The Numbers Segment
03:45 What Tattoos Cost
07:18 Personal Tattoo Stories
18:04 Social and Professional Costs of Tattoos
23:37 The Professionalism Dilemma
26:17 The Emotional Side of Tattoos
28:48 Tattoo Regrets and Cover-Ups
37:51 Tattoos and Life Events
42:43 20 Cents Segment
References for Statistics
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/15/32-of-americans-have-a-tattoo-including-22-who-have-more-than-one/
Lissa: Liz, you obviously have a lot of tattoos already, but would you get a face tattoo if someone gave you a million dollars?
Lizzy: How big does that have to be? Could it be-
Lissa: Visible.
Lizzy: ... like a mole? Could it be like a fake mole?
Lissa: No, That's the mole. That's a mole. That's not a tattoo.
Lizzy: I know, but a tattoo that looks like a mole.
Lissa: No, something that symbolizes something, not a dot.
Lizzy: But like how big? Like a pencil eraser?
Lissa: Minimum, yeah, pencil eraser.
Lizzy: Hell yeah, I would totally do it. I do like some tiny little something pencil eraser size for a million bucks.
Lissa: Where on your face?
Lizzy: Maybe like...
Lissa: That's not face.
Lizzy: That's face.
Lissa: Oh my god.
Lizzy: Face.
Lissa: Liz is cheating.
Lizzy: Or right over here or something.
Lissa: All right.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Fine.
Lizzy: For a million bucks, fuck yeah.
Lissa: Like a teardrop tattoo?
Lizzy: Not a teardrop, like a little star or something.
Lissa: All right. All right. Fine.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Well, you don't have to decide because there is no million dollars. Sorry.
Lizzy: For a million dollars, I would.
Lissa: Today we are talking about are tattoos worth it?
Lizzy: Let's talk about it.
Lissa: Welcome to Net Net with Lizzie and Lisa where we analyze hidden costs and empower you to make your own damn decisions in life. Each episode covers a different facet of life, and at the end of each episode, we each give our takes on whether we think something is net positive or net negative.
Lizzy: I'm Lizzie, a strategist and consultant with almost 20 years of experience in finance and investing.
Lissa: And I'm Lisa, I had to read what am I, a personal finance expert at a certified financial planner. We're best friends who talk about money.
Lizzy: ... and everything else.
Lissa: Are tattoos worth it?
Lizzy: First up, running the numbers on tattoos.
Lissa: According to a Pew Research Center survey, 32% of adults have a tattoo, including 22% who have more than one.
Lizzy: It's actually a little lower than I would have thought.
Lissa: Oh, really?
Lizzy: Yeah. The 22% is.
Lissa: Okay.
Lizzy: Okay. 38% of women have at least one tattoo compared with 27% of men also surprised me.
Lissa: That surprised me, for sure. 41% of those under 30 have at least one compared with just 13% of those 65 and older.
Lizzy: Interesting. All right. That makes sense. Yeah.
Lissa: Increasing with the generations.
Lizzy: Younger generations. This one was interesting. So 39% of Black Americans have a tattoo compared with 35% of Hispanic, 32% of white, and only 14% of Asian Americans.
Lissa: We'll get to that later. I count in that. I mean, no, I don't count in that. Okay. We'll get to that later. My bad. All right. Let's keep running the numbers. 24% say they regret getting one or more tattoos.
Lizzy: Good work.
Lissa: Thanks.
Lizzy: The most commonly cited reason is to honor or remember someone or something. 69% of tattooed adults say that this is either a major or minor reason that they got any of their tattoos. Just under half, 47%, say they got a tattoo to make a statement about what they believe, and 32% say they got at least one to improve their physical appearance.
Lissa: Interesting. Well, we know there is more to life than statistics and numbers, so let's get into it. Are tattoos worth it?
Lizzy: All right. First, let's talk about the costs of tattoos. From a financial standpoint, you are going to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to get a tattoo. I have many as you can see, and they have range. I have a artist, shout out to Lifestyle Tattoos, that I am really comfortable with, and he kind of hooks me up a little bit. So a lot of my work is a lot cheaper or less expensive, I should say, than you might get somewhere else, but at the same time, we went and got some impromptu tattoos. Here's an example.
Lissa: Did you lose count of how many you even have?
Lizzy: I have, I think, a sleeve, a leg sleeve in progress and 14 individual tattoos, I think.
Lissa: What's that math? A lot.
Lizzy: Well, because it's like do you count this as one?
Lissa: Yeah, that's true.
Lizzy: So I guess if you count it as one-
Lissa: Dozens.
Lizzy: ... then 16, but-
Lissa: But more that that.
Lizzy: ... 14 plus two sleeves basically. So this sleeve probably costs $2,500 and that's very inexpensive for the quality of the work, but you might expect to pay several thousand dollars. A lot of artists will have a minimum of a few hundred dollars just for opening the needles and the time and prep that it takes. There's a wide range, right? Some are more inexpensive, and the higher demand artists are hundreds of dollars per hour.
Lissa: Interestingly, I have nine tattoos, I think. I have to think.
Lizzy: That's more than I thought.
Lissa: Yeah, but look at me.
Lizzy: You would never know.
Lissa: You would never know. We'll get into that, but I've paid in the hundreds range for every single one. Maybe I even got one for $50 because I have a couple of tiny small ones. To me, the financial cost has never been a huge issue. It's more like the aftermath of it. I mean, yeah, I've never had to pay a lot, I'd say, for tattoos, and I never had to go to multiple sessions because like for your sleeve, you got to go back. It's just one and done. It's never been a huge portion of my budget ever.
Lizzy: Sure. Yeah. For one-offs, it's usually not so much that you have to-
Lissa: Yeah, you just save up and then you go get it.
Lizzy: Yeah, you can save up. If you're doing a sleeve or a larger piece, a back piece, or even I think some of my smaller, not a full sleeve pieces have taken multiple sessions, then you have to account for that seriously in your budget, especially if it's something that you're consistently working on like every three weeks you're going back, then it's a legitimate expense, a line item in the budget, for sure.
Lissa: Yep. Okay. So that's the financial cost. It varies depending on, I guess, small to big to how many tattoos, and I think for most people even, because even for someone who has sleeves and stuff, I mean, until you cover everything up, at some point there's going to be an end to it.
Lizzy: Yeah. Yeah, I'll finish at some point. Probably, I'll finish this leg and then I'll probably be winding down to be honest.
Lissa: So what is your main motivator?
Lizzy: I just like them.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: I've always, my whole life, known I would have tattoos.
Lissa: Well, how about talk us through the lead up to getting your first one?
Lizzy: Yeah. I didn't grow up around them. I was a little Mormon kid, as I've talked about on the show before, but I've always known when we'd play house with my friends, my person always had tattoos. I got my first one when I was 18. It's on my back. It's like a basketball inside of a heart, and I designed it myself. I knew I wanted it. I was living at home, and so I was not allowed, or maybe I was 18 or 19. I was 18, but I was living at home in college and not under my roof kind of thing.
But my mom already had one. My stepdad did not and it became this kind of a joke where it was, "I'll play you one-on-one in basketball and if you beat me, you can get one." This was with my dad, and this went on for months and months he wouldn't play me. Everyone, like friends and family started teasing him about it. It just became this big joke. One day, finally convinced him to let's go play, and he just let me win. Then it was either if I lost, I couldn't get one. If I won, he'd pay for it.
Lissa: Oh, okay.
Lizzy: So he paid for it, and I actually went with my mom and she got one with me the same time. Then I think that was my first one for maybe a year or two. The next time I got three small ones at the same time, but that was more a function of cost because I was young and worked part-time and stuff. So that's what kicked it off. Then I kind of chilled for a little while, probably more financially. Maybe I'd get ideas, but I would sit with my ideas for a long time. A few years later, I added one or two and then it kind of kicked off later. In my late 20s is when I really went for it.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: How about you? What was your first one?
Lissa: My first one was as soon as I turned 18. In a similar vein, I was not allowed and I probably wasn't allowed until about a year ago and I'm 38 now. So anyway, back then I definitely wasn't allowed. I had my reasons for wanting one too. I think self-expression was the biggest one, and it's always something that intrigued me. I don't really have a better reason besides that. I can't even say it's too... Self-expression for myself because the first one I got was hidden. I've hidden quite a few of them. Well, the main reason I hid it was because I didn't want to get in trouble, which is crazy because to think I turn 18, I'm doing this thing that I'm not allowed to do, but I want to do anyway, but let me hide it so that I don't get in trouble, trouble by my mom and disowned. So I'm going to put it in a place that I don't actually want to put it there, but I'm going to put it there.
So I got this small-ish tattoo of the Gemini sign, which is the two sign and two turtles. I still like turtles. I loved them at the time because I had two pet turtles, but one reasoning that I picked Gemini was I was like, "Okay. Well, my birthday is my birthday. It's never going to change. I'm a Gemini." So I got that and then I hid it. It's on my waist. I don't regret it, but it is my least favorite tattoo of all of them because I didn't do it the way that I wanted. I had all these things guiding my decision of the placement of it.
Lizzy: Right. That weren't just being true to you.
Lissa: Yeah. So that's what led me to it. Then soon after that, I got another one. My dad had a tattoo. He was in the military. He had one on his arm and it was a rosary even though we're not Catholic. It was like roses with a rosary and his says mom and dad, so it was the thing about to honor people. I always thought it was cool. As he got older, his arm got more wrinkly, so it was hard to see, but I had snapped a picture of it, and then he passed away. So this happened after he passed away. Oh, no, before he did. Before he did, I got the same design he had. I had an artist change it up a little bit and then I put it on my left leg.
I am glad I didn't put on my arm like he did, but I put on my left leg again at a place to hide it, but at least this time I felt like it had a lot more symbolism to it. Instead of putting mom and dad in it, I put the word family because family is very important to me. Yeah, that was the second one. Yeah. Very much guided more by, I guess, my family connection, my values, what I care about. But again, the reason I put it in this place was it's like a weird placement on my leg that you can't see unless I'm in a bikini. So just fast forward, what I'll say is I spent so many years trying to hide tattoos, and I wish I didn't.
Lizzy: Really?
Lissa: I mean, sometimes I'm like, "oh, it's cool." When I look at myself in a mirror wearing shorts and a tank top, you would never know I have a tattoo because they're all in hidden places, but then at the same time, when I look at myself naked, I'm like, "Dang, these are in random places," because they were strategically placed to be hidden.
Lizzy: Do you like that you can hide them, that people could never know?
Lissa: I don't think I care one way or another anymore. I just think it's more that I chose the placement because of one person in particular, my mom getting mad at me because I think it was a very cultural thing, because as we saw with younger generations, it seems to be more common and more accepted and I think less likely to affect your professionalism-
Lizzy: Definitely.
Lissa: ... in the workplace and your ability to upward mobility. But I think back then, it was such a big thing, especially being a child of immigrants. My parents wanted us to be straight A students in high school. You got to do everything right perfectly, otherwise you're not going to make it. So one of those is like, "Don't get a tattoo and look like you're some hoodlum." I'm like-
Lizzy: Right. It was associated with criminals historically.
Lissa: It was. So I think that's where that came from. Then over the years, I don't know, I think she's softened on it because of culture and just seeing other peers of mine and even my younger cousins getting them, and it's more normalized now in my family. Yeah.
Lizzy: It's interesting that you say that. Think that's probably one of the reasons I was drawn to them is that I was this super straight A student, never had detention in my whole life, never been grounded, but there's this side-
Lissa: But needs to rebel.
Lizzy: I really love that disconnect, but that definitely probably has affected me or maybe hypothetically would have affected me differently being a white woman than if I were of another race. So I want to acknowledge that my experience with that is definitely different, and I don't necessarily have the same other layers that are put on me.
Lissa: Your parents, I feel like, are more progressive. Yeah. My mom would never go to an appointment with me, let alone pay for a tattoo or anything like that. Interestingly, maybe about five years ago, I got one. Well, I have two quick stories about my mom. Once I got one and for a month she didn't pick up my calls and I don't know... I still to this day don't know if it was directly related to the tattoo thing or she was busy every time I called her. I don't know, but I've internalized that as the reason why. She was just so upset at me, she just didn't want to deal with me, and I was really hurt by that because I'm like, "Just I got some ink on me all of a sudden, I'm a bad daughter. I do all these other things." So that really hurt.
But then another time I told her I got one and then she got mad, and then I was like, "Yeah, but I got your name, your nickname." Because my mom's nickname is Isa, which is I-S-A, and it's Isa, it is spelled the same way in Tagalog means one. So I put one Isa with a heart. So it has multiple meanings, but part of it is to honor my mom because she did so much to sacrifice for our whole family and for us growing up. So it's like then she was cool with that one. So I'm like, "It's not the fact that there's ink on my body." At some point, I disconnected from caring about her opinion, whether or not she wanted to disown me or not over ink. Yeah. No, people will get over things like that.
Lizzy: Well, and I think the other thing to understand is it's not necessarily logical, but there's just people have feelings that are conditioned and layered and complex. My younger brother had a similar experience. I have been the one that, I guess, has corrupted him. I took him to my artist and that became a cool thing we started doing together. A cool bonding thing is we'd go and get tattoos together, but his first tattoo was a quote, but he had my mom write out part of it in her handwriting, and my dad write out the other part in his handwriting. My mom doesn't care. She lets us do whatever we want. My dad was not super thrilled, but did it and was okay with it for that reason. Yeah, it's complex.
Lissa: It's very complex. Let's talk about other costs.
Lizzy: Yeah. There's a social cost, without a doubt, and that can be professionally and otherwise, right? So preconceived notions, judgments, particularly if they're visible, and I think that affects different groups differently. I think it affects men more so than women.
Lissa: And I think it's negative and positive. I think sometimes I'll see people with tattoos and I'm like, "Oh, they're cool."
Lizzy: For sure. For sure. That's why a lot of people get them. Or God, just dating, that's a thing. There's a certain group of guys that like women with tattoos. It's signaling. That's a lot of the reason people do it. You're expressing yourself, but you're also communicating something about yourself to the world around you.
Lissa: It's great conversation starter.
Lizzy: Oh my God.
Lissa: It helps you dig into your values. Yeah. What? Conversation?
Lizzy: Literally, every time I go to the gym, literally some man usually will come up and ask me about my tattoos every time.
Lissa: Well, I guess that's a conversation starter is both negative and positive.
Lizzy: Yeah, it can be good and bad, and I get it. Sometimes it's probably an entry point to try to hit on me and sometimes not. Yeah. It's also just like any kind of social belonging thing, "Oh, we share this thing, we're part of this subculture, part of this community." It's a talking point, but that can go negatively as well. There can be a lot of judgment associated with it. I personally don't think I have experienced as much of that for some of the reasons I said. I am a younger woman. I'm blonde. There's just different things that I think counteract the tattoos that make it a little bit easier for me to be honest than what other people might have to experience. I don't think people perceive me as scary.
Lissa: No. I mean, I do because I know you can beat somebody up. I just know you got my back like that on the basketball court.
Lizzy: Got you.
Lissa: But no, not in that way.
Lizzy: Then professionally, I think that was the biggest consideration for me in not getting visible tattoos at first. So my first visible tattoo, I guess, are these on my collarbones. I was pretty young when I got these. I think I was 21, but for the most part I could cover them up if I needed to. I worked in an agency. It was pretty casual, but I was very mindful of that, of not having anything super visible. The next one I got, I was working in house at a fund company, so pretty buttoned up environment and it was this one and-
Lissa: Which is? Show us.
Lizzy: A naked lady.
Lissa: A naked lady body.
Lizzy: That's why I texted my mom. You were with me when I got this one, I think. Were you?
Lissa: I can't remember anymore.
Lizzy: I think I got this New Orleans.
Lissa: Oh, yeah.
Lizzy: I think so. Yeah. But I texted my mom, "I got a naked lady tattooed on my arm," and she was like, "Oh, cool." I got this, part of the reason I knew I was going to be leaving that company and starting my own business. I just hadn't done it yet. But at the same time, I mostly wore long sleeves. I didn't worry so much if I rolled my sweater up or something that someone would see it. Most of my team knew I had some tattoos, but I didn't really, really go for it until I quit. Then I think the week I quit, I started my sleeve and I got my nose pierced, which the nose piercing wouldn't have mattered.
Lissa: She's like, "Freedom."
Lizzy: Yeah, exactly. Because I anticipated I'm doing this, I will work for myself forever, which is and isn't true. I didn't think I would be going back into finance, which is ironic. I started a branding business and so I thought I would stay in that field. So then as I have navigated back into finance, it's been an interesting journey of do I show them or do I not? Most of the time if I'm on a panel or I'm at a conference where everyone's in a suit, most of the time I don't hide them. There are times when I'm aware of it because I already stand out in these environments.
Lissa: As a woman.
Lizzy: As a woman, as a young woman, as a blonde woman, all of the above. Actually, I was at a conference in October and I wasn't hiding them, and someone came up to me and he told me that he loved that and he was like... That's the other thing, it can make you more memorable, so that it can kind of use it to my advantage.
Lissa: Yeah, I think that's the right way to go about it because we've talked about professionalism before and it is a system that exists. Even though a lot of us don't like to adhere to it, and we don't like to talk differently on LinkedIn than we do on Instagram, if it can harm or hinder the growth of your career, sometimes you're going to try to fit in and do what you got to do. I think of it more as playing the game and working within the system and navigating it versus being the system owning you, but use it to your advantage.
Lizzy: I have an interesting journey with that. I think I used to think it's so bullshit. I mean, I still think it's bullshit, but I used to think it was so that I would be like, "I'm not adhering to this. I'm not subscribing to it and I'm good enough that I don't have to." It's not that that's not true or hasn't proven to be true, however, I've come to a more nuanced realization of just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's not real and doesn't mean there's not advantages to playing the game and presenting yourself in a "professional way." I've always thought that was so stupid. I still think it's stupid and I think it's a fact right now. Now I'm more mindful of it in little ways of trying to show up polished where I wouldn't have minded before knowing that it's strategic, but I'm choosing to do it, not because I feel like I have to.
Lissa: Yeah, I think the toughest part is that everyone views the world in their own lens and you don't know what, let's say, a person who's a decision maker in some way thinks about your tattoos or however else you visibly present yourself. We talked about this in the beauty services episode where if you can get away with it and if you can work it to your advantage, then that is a privilege and that is amazing, but for some people you can't. It actually can harm you. If you go to work with sweats instead of a suit, people are going to make assumptions, yet we see all these celebrities walking in sweats and looking cool, but that's a different, I guess, tier or different level.
So I think it's tough. You have to be aware of who your audience is, what your environment is, and play it as best you can to your advantage. Just always think about what's advantageous for you. Just because you roll your sleeves down to cover them doesn't make you not being true to yourself. It means, "No, I know how to read the room and I'm going to close this deal, or I'm going to get... If I just hide them real quick."
Lizzy: Or say, "I'm okay with whatever consequences come." I think that's where I was before and you may still be there. "You know what, I'm going to do me in the truest sense, and if that means I make a bad impression to this person, then they're not for me and I'm okay with that." You just have to make sure it's an educated choice.
Lissa: Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about the emotional costs because for someone like you who has a ton and I have almost double digits, I think while each one for me is special in some way, I can remember the story of why I got it and there's value behind it, I think I'm less and less worried about the permanency of it. But I think especially for people getting their first one or who are new to the game or who have a stronger emotional tie to the ink, what are some of the costs there?
Lizzy: I feel like this is a spectrum or at least a journey maybe. I think your first ones, if you end up becoming a person that gets a lot, I think usually the first ones have a lot of meaning because if you're just going to get one, it's not going to be arbitrary. The more you get, the more arbitrary they may become to the point of someone who's head to toe may have something just because I like it. I just like this picture or a cartoon character or a brand or whatever, because they're not less special, but they don't have to be as serious, I think, for some people as you get more. So I've experienced that where... For the most part, mine all have some kind of meaning and reasoning behind them.
I will say the one that's probably my least favorite is one that it's on my shoulder. It's an X-ray of a flower. It's really cool, but the way it turned out is I had an appointment and I think I was going to start my leg sleeve, but I wasn't ready because I didn't know what I wanted yet and so I was like, "All right. Well, what am I going to get?" I have a running list of ideas and images and so this was on there. So I picked it, but it wasn't as well considered and as meaningful and so it's probably my least favorite. I don't regret it. So I think that's some of it is like you look at some of them and you're like, "Oh, that one's not as meaningful as this one," or I don't like it as much.
I have some shitty tattoos. I didn't know when I was younger how much the ink will bleed over time, so I have some that's really small writing that you can't read. That doesn't bother me at all because I know what it says and I think that's kind of like the battle scars of it's part of the journey is like if you have a lot of tattoos, you're probably going to have some shitty ones. We went together and I got a couple small, very terrible tattoos. This guy was awful. He should never have a tattoo gun. It took at least an hour to draw a six on my hand.
Lissa: Well, this was the same visit, but I had a different guy. I put it in a place that I didn't know if it was going to fade or not. So now it's not solid, but you could still see it, but it's faded. So I have a couple too that were a very light-handed person, which I like that style.
Lizzy: Yeah. Or like a single needle or something.
Lissa: Yeah, a single needle, but then it fades.
Lizzy: Right. That happens with other tattoos. So if you look at my arm, you see that the top side that gets all the sun is much lighter than the backside. Certainly, I could wear sunscreen on my arm all the time, but I don't, or you get it redone over time or you just let it fade.
Lissa: Yeah. So there are some additional costs if you touch things up or add to them. Do you know anyone who has spent money to get a tattoo removed.
Lizzy: I feel like I do, although it's not coming to mind. I do. Yeah.
Lissa: I know a person too. Yeah. She's just like, "Why did I get this big ass thing on my hip?"
Lizzy: Yeah, I know several people who've had coverups. I know two people who've had a word spelled wrong, two people very close to me.
Lissa: Oh, no. How does that happen?
Lizzy: They just are looking at it too quickly.
Lissa: So did they fix it?
Lizzy: One of them did. Anyway.
Lissa: You know what would be funny is if a word is spelled wrong on you and you know how when you write a sentence and if you miss it, you put the little carrot symbol?
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: You might as well just put a carrot.
Lizzy: Editing marks. Right.
Lissa: ... and put a little letter.
Lizzy: Yeah. Someone, a good friend, they've fixed it the best they could. But yeah, I know people who've gotten coverups.
Lissa: That's not cheap, like coverups and laser.
Lizzy: Laser is not cheap and it hurts.
Lissa: It's painful.
Lizzy: So that's another cost, the physical cost of tattoos. I don't care what anybody tells you. Tattoos fucking hurt. They hurt.
Lissa: With the exception. The one that I got on my upper back, I fell asleep during. It didn't hurt for some reason, or maybe I'm used to it. I don't know.
Lizzy: Yeah, someone jabbing you with a needle hurts. There's no two ways about it.
Lissa: I fell asleep.
Lizzy: Yeah, I've gotten very, very chill. I have a high tolerance for pain. I can sit, but-
Lissa: For the most part, yes.
Lizzy: ... take hours and hours.
Lissa: It's pokey.
Lizzy: Different parts hurt differently. I always say that it feels like someone's stabbing you or scraping you on a sunburn. It's kind of a burning-
Lissa: Burning.
Lizzy: ... feeling. That said, in a weird way, it's kind of addicting. But no lie, my inner thigh for this sleeve, brutal. Brutal.
Lissa: So how long for a big tattoo that is the recovery? How long after does it sting or do you have to care for it?
Lizzy: It's tender for maybe a week and you have to put... It depends how they do it. Now there's different technologies, so they'll put these plastic sheets on it that you keep on it until they come off basically. Other artists won't do that. They'll just have you put Aquaphor or something. So, it depends if it peels or not. It may take longer if it peels.
Lissa: But the impact, I guess, on your life from a health perspective, relatively minimal, you think?
Lizzy: I think so, yeah. I will say though, that something that a lot of people don't account for, if you are enduring a needle stabbing at you for... If it's a five-minute tattoo or... I have some that are so quick that similarly, not that you don't feel it, but it doesn't bother you. If you're doing it for hours, you feel like you have the flu at the end of it. It takes a toll on your immune system. It can be really, really draining. It can give you a headache. You have to recover from it because it's trauma to your body. So there's that too. So, tattoos hurt. Different places hurt more than others, but from everything I have heard, tattoo removal hurts even worse.
Lissa: More. I know. So that's why I'm not even thinking about trying to remove what I have. At this point, it's part of me.
Lizzy: Yeah, that's my view is it's all part of the story.
Lissa: These are all part of me.
Lizzy: I think there's some humor or something cool.
Lissa: Yeah, I can laugh about it, for sure.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Som would you ever get matching tattoos with someone, partner or a friend?
Lizzy: Possibly.
Lissa: Friendships end. Relationships end.
Lizzy: Yeah, possibly. I'm not 100% on it. It depends on what it is. It's interesting that when you ask that, my first thought is mine are so individualistic. It's a personal thing, but maybe.
Lissa: For me, personally, I think part of the meaning for me is the time and event, that moment in time, because for example, there was once where Liz and another friend of ours came over. This was post-pandemic, but it was still weird times, and so we had a mini sleepover at my place and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to bake cookies, those Cookie Monster cookies. We're going to do face masks and all these things." Then one of them had the idea of like, "We should get tattoos."
Lizzy: Things were still closed for COVID because this was covert. We went to this... We had to find a studio.
Lissa: We found a person.
Lizzy: They weren't technically open, although they were. That's probably the only-
Lissa: Spontaneous one.
Lizzy: Kind of. I think I've gotten gotten a few tattoos at this one place in New Orleans when I've gone, a couple different trips, and the first one was spontaneous.
Lissa: So going into this, I don't think any of us, but I didn't have anything in mind that I wanted to get. I was trying to think of things-
Lizzy: Yeah, same.
Lissa: ... on the drive there. So once we got there, okay, we all picked what we wanted. Like I said, it's this one on my hand that's kind of faded, which I don't care because when I look at it, I remember that night how spontaneous and fun it was.
Lizzy: It was so fun.
Lissa: We had a thought and we executed.
Lizzy: And it was such a classic girl's night. It was great. It was great time.
Lissa: We went from tie-dyeing shirts on my rooftop-
Lizzy: Oh, I forgot about that part.
Lissa: ... to getting inked. That's how I feel. So bringing it back to would I get one with a partner or a friend? I won't say that I'm seeking it out, but I would also say I probably would because even if a friendship ended or if something, a relationship ended, it was in that moment in time. If it evolves and you cover it up or add to it, I think you always have those options or you just say that that's part of my story.
Lizzy: I agree. That's my complete feeling about it. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the fact that as you age, like you talked about with your dad, your skin's going to change, your tattoos are going to change? Do you feel a certain way about that?
Lissa: I used to, especially because that first one I got when I was 18, it's on my waistline. It's already kind of like blurry turtles. They're turtles, but at some point these turtles and the Gemini sign might look like a piece of poop as far as I know, right? What worried me at first was I've never been pregnant, but I'm thinking what will happen to it during and after, but I think I'm just at peace now of that's just what it is.
Lizzy: That's part of it. It's part of it.
Lissa: It's part of it. So I think I'm less tied to that. I think as we age, we will see our skin sag a little, but again, it's part of your story, so it's either that and you deal with it or you just never go through with the thing you wanted.
Lizzy: Yeah. Yeah, that's my take too. I think I'll look like a bad-ass old woman.
Lissa: You think?
Lizzy: Okay. You have a wedding ceremony coming up?
Lissa: Oh, yeah.
Lizzy: Do you have feelings about, that's something very specific for people, a wedding, their tattoos showing when they're in a wedding dress?
Lissa: Yeah. At first, I had had this idea that I was going to get... The one I wanted to cover, this is my Kobe Bryant tattoo. Okay. It's the Mamba symbol. It's on my upper back, and some people mistake it for a cross kind of looking thing. I have nothing against whatever. People can think what they want. But for the way the look that I want, I just don't want it in the photos and stuff, and so I had this idea that I was going to get a dress that somehow covered my back, maybe just get a non-traditional-
Lizzy: Lace or a-
Lissa: Yeah, something that covered it. Actually, Liz came dress shopping with me, and then I fell in love with a dress that fits so great on my body and it was on sale, so I was like, "Now we're doing this," but it's full back is exposed, including that tattoo. Yeah, I actually only thought about this a couple weeks ago, I want my hairdo to be half up, half down so that-
Lizzy: So it covers it.
Lissa: ... it covers it. That's just my preference for the photos. I don't regret the tattoo itself. Yeah.
Lizzy: Yeah. I think that it's interesting, I think a lot of people have opinions about especially what are more formal occasions, which is fine, but it's something to consider. I might have felt that way when I had fewer. Now-
Lissa: Yeah. Now you can't hide it. Yeah.
Lizzy: Now it's just me, and that's just part of it.
Lissa: You'd have to be in a hazmat suit to hide it from the viewers.
Lizzy: Yeah. I will say that reminds me though, when I got my sleeve, it was just exciting and cool. When I started my leg sleeve, the first one was this. It was big, this huge piece of a seer looking at a crystal ball, and I had this moment where I looked in there, I was like, "Holy shit, I'm never going to see my leg again, my leg without tattoos." That was the first time I'd ever had that moment because it's so big and I don't know why I didn't feel that way about my arm, or I like my legs and so it was just like, "Oh, this is different." Not a regret, just an acknowledgement like, "Oh, my legs will never look like the legs I've had my whole life again."
Lissa: I can see that. That makes sense.
Lizzy: Which was Weird, and now I love it, and I try to show it off when I can. But yeah, just an interesting emotional cost I hadn't considered.
Lissa: Something that we said in the stats that was interesting was how more women have them than men. That surprised me. But now that I'm thinking about it, I think every single of my close girlfriends has at least one and my closest guy friends, my three closest guy friends don't have any.
Lizzy: I have a theory. I think it has become pretty common to have daintier tattoos or to have the six, or I have a lot of little ones, right? It's small, you can hide it, but I think that's normal for women. I don't think it's very common for guys to have little dainty tattoos.
Lissa: So they got to commit to something bigger.
Lizzy: It's usually guys, you have tattoos, right? It's not very common to have them just-
Lissa: That's true.
Lizzy: ... kind of sprinkled around. I also think the stigma can be greater for men, and so it's more of a choice, or especially if you're a person of color there's, "Am I choosing to buy into this stereotype or allow myself to be stereotyped by this?" There's a lot of levels to it.
Lissa: In a weird sense, it might be one privilege some women can afford over men, right?
Lizzy: I think it is. Yeah.
Lissa: Yeah. I think so too, because even if you are in a professional workplace, and I think as a woman with a tattoo, you're actually seen in a more positive light than a man with tattoo. Maybe that's going away, and it depends on your industry, but I can see that.
Lizzy: It probably depends.
Lissa: I can see that.
Lizzy: But yeah, I think that's true, and some of that may be the origins of them is tattoos were, again, often associated with criminals or later, with gangs, and so that more often affected men or included men, and so then those associations, I don't think people often look at a woman with tattoos and think she's a criminal.
Lissa: Right. Yeah. Except you, because you're scary.
Lizzy: Well, yeah, obviously me. Yeah.
Lissa: All right. 20 cents?
Lizzy: 20 cents.
Lissa: 20 cents is the segment of the show, or both Lizzie and myself, Lisa, each get 60 seconds to give our two cents on today's topic on tattoos, whether it's a net positive or net negative. Where does 20 cents come from?
Lizzy: You get the opinion of two dimes, y'all.
Lissa: Two dimes, 20 cents. All right. Liz, you get 60 seconds on the clock. Your first are tattoos worth it?
Lizzy: I'm net positive on tattoos, obviously. Yeah. The costs honestly have been fairly minimal for me or easily absorbed, given the weight that I give them and the value I put on having a way to express myself and kind of that individual identity. I like the fact that it makes you even more unique than you already are as just a normal person. Yeah, I would say absolutely net positive for myself, given my experiences, definitely my privileges and my career path.
Lissa: All right.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Pretty obvious.
Lizzy: Yeah. All right, Liz.
Lissa: All right. This will be interesting. Where I stand right now at this moment in time is different than my overall feelings about tattoos. I think overall, net positive. Like I said, I have stories and memories that go along with each one that I've ever gotten, but I've not thought about them in the last couple of years and I don't plan to get any in the next couple of years. That's not to say that if next week one of my best group of friends say, "Let's go matching tattoos," that I won't be part of it. I probably will, but because it's not a priority financially or otherwise, I'm going to go negative. Negative.
Lizzy: Yeah, I see that.
Lissa: That right now in this moment in time, I just don't care about it.
Lizzy: Yeah. I actually see myself getting there, to be honest with you. Obviously, I have many, but even this leg sleeve, I haven't touched it in the past nine months or so, and it hasn't been a priority. I will finish it and I'll probably chill.
Lissa: Yeah.
Lizzy: Yeah.
Lissa: Because sometimes you have different priorities. I don't want to spend my money on that, and there's nothing important enough to me at the moment to get it.
Lizzy: No, I get it. I get it.
Lissa: Well, remember, this is what we think right now at this moment in time. Like we said, that could change in two weeks. Who knows? But no one can make that decision. But what do you think? Are tattoos worth it?
Lizzy: Hit us up. Let us know what you think. DM us on Instagram @netnetpodcast or email us at hi@netnetpodcast.com. If you want to follow us individually, here's where you can find us.
Lissa: I'm @WealthForWomenOfColor on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
Lizzy: And I'm @live_well_lizzy on Instagram and TikTok.
Lissa: All references, statistics and resources mentioned can be found in our show notes. This podcast is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and should not be constituted as financial advice. Remember to always do your own research, consult a professional as needed, and feel empowered to make your own damn decisions.