If you’re in deep shit with the bad ink job you got, this is your last chance to turn the tables on that terrible mistake.
Right now, we’re offering a chance to win either a consultation and two FREE laser removal sessions from Durango Dermatology or a FREE badass cover-up from Robert Smith at Black Mountain Tattoo in Cortez. If you win, you never have to show anyone that trash tat again.
To win the laser sessions or cover-up, all you have to do is send us a photo, a short story about your crappy ink job, and tell us which prize you want to win in an email to [email protected]/ We’ll throw the best-worst stories and photos online each Thursday, our readers will vote, and the winners will be announced the week of January 17.
This is your chance to turn the tables on the past. Easy peasy…well, aside from the shame. That part we ain’t got no solution for.
ICP ink“Was young and dumb and thought it would be just so awesome to get a tattoo for cheap and at a friend’s home. Was a very costly mistake as the guy didn’t clean his equipment properly and ended up with a bad staff infection. If I win I would love to get the cover up since I think Robert Smith is an amazing artist and person.”
— Beau Duran[image:2]Type O tattoo blues “When I was in first grade I lived in NW Indiana. Following a military protocol of the period (Korean War) the local school districts decided to have the blood type of each student tattooed on their left sides. They decided to do half the class the first day, the other half the next. My name, being as it started with M, put me I in the second days batch. The first kids all came back to the classroom crying. “Screw this!” I thought to myself, so next morning I faked being sick. (My Mom always fell for it.) I came back to school on day three thinking I’d pulled off the slickest scam since John Dillinger broke out of a local jail with a gun made from a bar of soap….But no! They were waiting for me! A nurse who stood taller than Lebron James led me to the nurses office, where upon I spied a big gun that looked like a giant power drill. On it was a fiendish batch of needles in the shape of “O+”. I was then told to pull up my shirt…I was feeling nervous. She then had me put my arm around her neck and “OW!!!!!!” I got stabbed by the big tattoo gun. Hurt? You bet it hurt! But I now had “O+” on my left side, just like a soldier in the U.S. Army. So, if I got wounded in Korea (they might draft 6 year olds) the M.A.S.H. doctors would know my blood type. Or, if I got hurt on the asphalt playground, fell off the war surplus galvanized steel pipe monkey bars, etc. the nurse would know, too. That was 1950. The tattoo is still there and is mostly just a smudge. Most people don’t believe this could happen, but my older sisters and I all stand as witnesses, and if you do a Google you can read about how Indiana tattooed it’s kids in 1950.”
— Jerry McGeorge[image:3]Military madness“This is what happens when you’re in the military and a friend says let’s get a tattoo.”
— Ryan HurleyStrater skin sesh“I got my first tattoo when I was 15 by a visiting artist. She was doing them out of a room in the Strater Hotel. I had a fake ID. Fortunately, it is not my least favorite. That one was pretty much done in a basement and has already been covered up.”
— Kim Grote-Woodson[image:4]Foot flower fail“Here is my tattoo that I absolutely hate. I got it when I was going through my divorce in 2010. This guys girlfriend convinced me gonna be him do it. I don’t want to call him out but this tattoo is horrible! It was suppose to be 3 flowers, one for each of my children, but the color is very faded, lines are bad and I just think it is embarrassing. Someday I will get something for my now 5 children. I don’t even want to wear sandals because of this ugly thing! I would like to just have it removed because I would rather not be reminded of this hard time period in my life and I don’t think the location, my foot, allows for color to actually stay very long.”
— Crystal Robson[image:5]Don’t believe (in a random tattoo artist)“I want a bad ass cover up! I know Robert can fix this catastrophe of a tattoo. So, I decided on a whim to get a tattoo from someone I did not know or trust… and the lines came out crooked and squiggly, the color did not take, and it just was BAD. I don’t want it gone, just want a cover up!”
— Anndi J Crawford[image:6]Penile fish“I had gotten this when I was 18. By a ex’s parent haha. Had been meaning to get it covered up for over 10 years now. And they guy did not do a very well job. In pictures and in person it looks like a man genital part with scales haha.”
— Bianca Keck[image:7]Dolphins and reusable ink jobs“I originally drew up a tattoo of two dolphins coming together with a heart in the middle. It was meant to represent my mom and I coming together in love no matter how far apart we may be (just like dolphins do). The first person to do the tattoo never got the chance to finish. I went to another person, who I thought did good tattoos, only to discover (after they finished) that not only did they make it look horrible but that they reused their ink. I wound up with a massive staff infection in my back that nearly landed me in the hospital. Thank God that is all I wound up with! Take three I went to a tattoo shop and had someone professional work on it. He did his best and made it look WAY better then it had. Getting a cover up that truly represents my mom would mean the world to me after losing her 6 years ago.
I would love to have a cover up by Robert as I have seen his work and truly admire it.”
— Heather Duran[image:8]Motor home tatsI got these two tattoos barely into my 20s. I was eager to get inked and had found these two tattoo ideas from a temporary tattoo sheet, of all things! There was a guy who’d come into our town for certain events and parked his motor home off the side of the main street through town. I thought he must have been good at his job because people would always go to him. Well, needless to say, you get what you pay for…You be the judge of the work I had done!
(Editor’s note: Analise is competing for the cover-up)
— Analise MahnkenAngle eyesI had my ex-husband do some homemade tats. He put “angle eyes” on me instead of “angel eyes”! So that one needs to be fixed or covered! I have a bunch he did that needs fixed or covered!
— Heather Clover-McKinsey
