the TATTOO ZINE.com

THE DE GERMINATOR

PORTABLE UV SANITIZER BY SPECTROLINE

by DG Wilson

I love this thing! I use it all the time in my studio. It works great and fast, at least I think it does. A lot of these techniques and tools that are out there, do they really work? I wonder. When I turn this thing on, I can see a blue light, but are the germs dying, being sanitized? I can not be sure.

We in the field can get our Autoclaves Spore tested, (about a $100 bucks a shot too) and find out that once again, no we have no spores in there. Was it necessary then? Of course. We in the field depend on our customers, they are our bread and butter.

Nothing leaves a calling card like a dead customer. Just you wait and see how it affects business. But I wonder. Have you ever heard of someone getting anything biological from a tattoo. I mean it. Besides the rumors, is there any proof?

I have been tattooing for the last 12 years and I have met a lot of tattoo artists in that time. Some of them don't look all that neat and clean...wouldn't it be a reasonable expectation that they may cut a corner or two. After all, we are artists right? If the business was all that dangerous wouldn't some young, inexperienced artist or a really old, tired and dirty artist cause at least a few incidents? But no, what we hear about are the mistakes. I wonder if the tattoo business is at all dangerous, or if the business of sterilization is a game of profit for the companies that sell the stuff they say we need.

I have NEVER had a single customer get an infection or illness, disease from my work. Now I am not going to stop my four step process. I keep it going, just in case. But I wonder if a lot of the stuff we are told to use does not work or

may even be unnecessary. I know a tattoo does not cause as much damage to a body like say surgery. Hospitals need to sterilize because we DO hear of them causing infections and deaths... but a tattoo artist? It seems to me that the people that say we are so dangerous to our customers are the same people that run dirty hospitals and sell us necessary crap.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK