This DIY Tattoo Gun Will Make Tattoos Even More Personal

Rihanna gets inked by celebrity tattoo artist, Bang Bang. (Photo: Instagram)

Good news for the early aughts teens who gave themselves Sharpie tattoos! Nowadays, we can do DIY gel manicures, blowouts, and laser treatments, so it only makes sense that DIY tattoos — the real ones, not the trendy flash ones you saw at Coachella — will become an inevitable beauty tool for those who want a little more permanent décor for their bod. Royal College of Art graduate Jakob Pollág created the Personal Tattoo Machine kit, which he’s hoping to retail between $75 and $90 once it’s on the market — if it’s on the market. Pollág, who told Dazed that he has around 20 tattoos (he doesn’t keep track), doesn’t think of tattoos as beautiful. “For me it’s more about materializing memory and freezing a moment in time. For me they are stories rather then pictures and they are very personal,” he told Dazed. “Only the person getting them done really knows why.”

The parts of the DIY tattoo gun, assembly required. (Photo: Courtesy of Personal Tattoo Machine)

Before you clutch your pearls, take heed that the motor-driven appliance comes with sterilized needles, tubes, rubber gloves, and antiseptic lotion — this may or may not ever pass FDA-approval in the United States (you can buy acupuncture needles for personal use, after all), but the sentiment is strong as an art project. “The aim is to enhance tattoos that are not about aesthetics instead their main function is to reflect meaningful memories,” the website states. “Due to their permanent nature, it is important that they are honest and exclusive. It enables you to mark a significant event or period of time onto your body so it will always be with you and represents who you are.”

While these days fancy tattoos — especially those by celebrity artist Bang Bang, as seen on Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Kylie Jenner — are seen as a status symbol for those who find Chanel bags too basic, permanent body ink has always been about telling personal stories and etching your memories onto your most intimate spaces of being. “Show me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past,” author Jack London once wrote. “I am a canvas of my experiences, my story is etched in lines and shading, and you can read it on my arms, my legs, my shoulders, and my stomach,” makeup artist Kat Von D wrote in her book, High Voltage Tattoo. In the late 1880s, tattooing was considered to be a mark of wealthy amongst Europe’s crowned heads because it was time-consuming and expensive.

But the Personal Tattoo Machine doesn’t want tattoos to be a luxury item, heavily dependent on how much you can afford on a tattoo artist. Pollág wants to democratize tattoos, which can run several hundred dollars per session. You may not get a flawless professional design if you do it yourself — or ask your non-artist friends to doodle a design for you — but you can borrow a trick from Pollág if you’re worried: he hides all of his tattoos under his clothes.

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