- I'm gonna start with a little bitty line,
I just need you to relax this and I'll move it around
as I need it.
- Whenever someone tells me to hold still,
I'm like oh fuck it's on.
- What I didn't anticipate was how deep
the scratch was gonna be and how close to the bone
it was gonna be.
- As long as I do not move my body,
if I don't fuck this up, it's not gonna get fucked up.
- It was definitely visible
that I was not the most comfortable.
(upbeat rock music)
- We're at The Warren and we're getting tattoos today!
- Some of us on our fingers, some of us on other parts
of our bodies, I don't know, we'll figure it out,
we're here, it's a Monday, we're getting tattoos.
- I really like tattoos, I think they're cool
I just feel anxious mostly because it's a permanent thing
and my mom, who is not the boss of me, doesn't like them.
But I'm an adult.
- I love them, I think they're an awesome expression
of your individuality, I think people get really really
creative with their tattoos, I feel like I shouldn't be
nervous because I have so many tattoos but because
it's been a while since I've gotten my last one,
I'm a little anxious.
- I love tattoos, I think tattoos are another way
to express yourself and they're another way to have
your own custom, like, art and masterpiece on your body.
- I'm a tattoo virgin, no tattoo so far,
I always kind of thought that my first tattoo
was probably gonna be something related to like,
my future babies, then Freddy said let's get finger tats
and I said okay.
- I have a tattoo on my ankle,
I got it about five years ago in Chicago,
it's a tattoo of a tree,
Like I was just always underneath this tree
when big events in my life would happen.
- I have a thick black band around my ankle,
and I love it because it's so minimalist but also
really really bold and I kinda wanna get something similar
on my finger.
- I'm going to get a little lavender sprig,
and I'm getting it right here.
Honestly, I really just enjoy having lavender in my life,
it's very calming, soothing and peaceful for me
and it just looks pretty, I like sprigs.
- There's a Japanese expression, it's spelled
Y-O-I-S-H-O and my grandmother always pronounced it Yoisho
basically it's just an expression that you use
when you're trying to like do something that requires
any amount of energy at all,
so it's like if you sit down after a long day,
you're gonna be like Yoisho.
So growing up it was just a word that I head all the time
and I think about my grandmother a lot
and I just thought it would be really nice.
And I really like that, that it's just this little word
that like is meant to like give you strength.
- I'm gonna get the Harry Potter stars
that are in the corner of each page
in the Harry Potter novel, and I'm gonna have
the tattoo artist actually rearrange them in a line,
so I can always be creating magic outward into the world.
- I have no idea what getting a tattoo feels like,
in general I'm pretty good with pain tolerance.
- I can do tattoos better than I can do piercings.
- If I'm like resigned to the fact that it's gonna be
for like 45 minutes or however long I can do it.
- I skateboard and fall a lot, so I'm just sort of used
to like, I mean I guess it's a very different type of pain.
- When I was younger, I thought that tattoos always had
to have this like huge, grand, purposeful meaning,
and then I think as I got older I was like,
oh, it can just be something you like.
- Getting a finger tat is definitely a bold statement
because you can't really hide it, and I think,
that's fine, I'm at the point in my life where I feel
like I can take control and I'm not scared
of people not accepting me or not getting a job
and things like that so, I'm ready,
I'm ready to seize the day.
- Great, yeah, let's go get some tattoos.
- Hi!
- I'm Chantelle.
- Zoey.
- Good to meet you. - Good to meet you.
I'm Zoey Taylor, I'm the owner of the shop here
The Warren and I'm a tattooist, I've been tattooing
for almost 17 years now.
Well I'm excited to work with the girls
from Ladylike so let's get started.
- The first thing we do is we have
a consultation with Zoey, each of us go in individually.
- So she took the images that we wanted into Photoshop
and arranged the particular way that would like,
so it would fit well on our finger.
- I didn't really know exactly what I wanted,
I knew that I wanted some kind of band
to mirror my ankle tattoo, so we decided on two bands,
one thick one thinner on my ring finger.
- I knew going in that I wanted a text tattoo,
and so Zoey was like very good at explaining to me
like what types of fonts we should be looking at,
'cause she was basically like, look, a lot of the stuff
that you see that looks good on a computer screen
is not gonna look good on your body.
I'm okay with the idea of like, the tattoo needing to get
redone a couple of times or parts of it fading a little bit,
but after talking to Zoey I felt confident to be like,
you know what, I wanted it on my finger,
everybody else is getting it on their finger,
let's just put it here, and I think it'll be fine.
- Flip people off with a lavender sprig.
So we're going through it,
I'm not exactly finding the type of sprig that I wanted
and so she's like, you know what, we'll just draw it.
So she starts drawing and I was like, Oh my god
this is coming together, this is what I want,
this is the sprig that I've always desired.
And the entire time I'm just like, I want it minimal,
I want clean lines, I want tiny little delicate lines,
she's like I understand this, you've told me 20,000 times,
you will like it.
And I was like, that's great but I just want it small.
Me and Jen are going for like the kiddie rides
with right here, and then Freddy and Devon
are just going all out.
- I'm gonna feel so magical with this tattoo.
And also when I flick people off,
they're gonna get a little magic too.
I wanted my Harry Potter starts to go in a line
because I don't want them necessarily
to be super recognizable as the Harry Potter stars,
I want them to be like, kind of rearranged for me.
So she took each star individually,
and like cut them and rearranged them,
and pasted them into a line, and she printed out
eight different like, stencils of sizes of the stars
and they measured it against my finger,
and then we decided on the right one.
- Finally I decided on the size and width of each line
and then it was time for stenciling.
When we got stenciled, it's pretty much just like,
a temporary tattoo, it gives you a really good sense
of what the tattoo will actually look like on your body.
- I had yoisho written on my finger,
so I knew what it would look like and how it would look.
That made me feel like a lot less nervous,
because I was like, okay, this is gonna look like this
and it'll be really cool.
- When I go in to get it stenciled, I was like, okay,
this is getting like, a little bit more real.
Nothing is still entirely setting in.
And then I get the stencil on my finger,
and I was like, huh, I guess there will be a tattoo there.
- And then it was time to get tattoos.
- Devon gave me this lollipop to suck on.
- Cool.
So maybe put it in your mouth and not your hand.
- I might start singing, I do that when I'm in pain.
- It's actually, okay.
- What?
- We just need you to be like, calm and chill.
- This is kind of the most intimidating part,
of any procedure, when they say, okay now, hold still,
that's when I immediately wanna go.
(rock music)
- I'm nervous, wait, why?
- I thought you were a pro.
- I, the thing is, it's been awhile,
it actually has been a while since I've gotten tattooed,
I don't really remember what the sensation is like.
As soon as I laid my hand on the arm rest,
sweat, clam, just clamminess.
- I honestly only felt nervous right before she put
the needle in, like the first second before it went down
there was a part of me that was like,
somebody fucking hold my hand, like somebody do something.
So once the needle actually hit my finger,
I was like, oh this is chill.
It's less painful than when I broke my finger.
- I didn't anticipate that it was gonna be
digging into my skin.
(grunting)
Oh man, it's sensitive there huh?
- It's been a while since I've gotten a tattoo,
I'd say maybe two years, and I had kind of forgotten
what the sensation felt like and it was real.
- Okay yep, my hands are getting clammy.
(laughing)
- The finger is kind of a hard thing to tattoo,
'cause it's long, it's skinny, it's bonny,
the skin is thin on the finger,
so I was just super impressed that she was able
to get us in and out so quickly.
(buzzing)
- The sides hurt the worst,
and then the top was sort of okay.
- I will say it hurt a little bit more
than I expected it to.
- I was making faces, I was making sounds,
I feel like I acted like more of a noob
in that situation than Chantelle and Jen,
who had actually never got a tattoo before.
- At one point I was just like, oh, uh, ah.
Are you done, and she was like, yeah.
Oh it's so cute.
Wow that was so fast.
The lollipop stick is becoming flimsy
because I was like, in my teeth.
- When I first saw the finished product
I was just so impressed.
It looks so good!
THere's something about a finger tattoo
that's so blatantly visible, but also so minute,
that's it's kind of like, low key badass.
- It looks great, I just can't believe it's real,
I can't believe I did this, I like it a lot.
It's done, the deed is done.
Now what?
This is probably my second favorite tattoo
after my ankle band tattoo, I'm just like really
into the band and the minimalist aesthetic.
- Because we did such small tattoos
and because Zoey is very talented, like,
I think I got my tattoo in like six minutes.
Oh it's so cool!
That's so cute, thank you so much.
- You're welcome.
- I love it that's amazing.
As soon as I got a look at it I was like,
this is really cool, like it's super simple
but I love how crisp it is, it's really readable
- Zoey was a boss 'cause she got everyone done
in like five minutes, and I really feel
like a badass with this.
- I'm happy we all sort of took that leap of faith
and did something really daring together.
We did it laids.
- We did!
- Whoa!
- We got tattoos!
- Yeah thank you Zoey.
- Yeah Zoey was amazing, she kept us strong
she kept us focused.
- You girls did good.
- Thank you.
- Yeah you all did good.
You were the least vocal, which is surprising
because you were about to sing.
- I was about to sing but then you said don't.
(laughing)
It made me feel closer to everyone as individuals
just to be there as they're like
getting needles injected into their skin and to like
help them deal with the nerves and to be nervous myself
and excited, it was really really cool.
- It did hurt.
It did sting, it was not dull.
It was a sharp pain, sharpest pain I've felt I think.
- Everybody's tattoo is so sharp though, this is so cool!
- I love them all.
Thank you so much Zoey!
- Thank you ladies.
- Thank you Zoey.
- You all did good.
- Thanks for just giving us awesome tattoos
and an awesome time, it was super duper fun.
- Alright so finger tats.
- Lady tested.
- Lady tatted.
- Who knows what's next?
Oh (laughing)
Feminine health is important.
(upbeat music)