How female tattoo shop owners are changing the business of ink

Alyse McCamish had no idea a tattoo appointment could be emotionally healing.

She remembers smelling incense when she entered Nashville, Tennessee’s Wild Honey Artistry studio, watching sheer curtains flutter in the air-conditioned breeze. She sat in the chair for nearly four hours, breathing calmly as the needle tinted her skin with ink, pouring out her anxiety to the artist as the ink poured into three dopamine-inducing tattoos traversing her arms: vines, a hummingbird and a weenie dog dressed in a hot dog costume.

“It was just such a therapeutic experience,” McCamish told Straight Arrow.

In the safe space of a woman-owned studio, McCamish found relief where many encounter numbing pain and nervous energy. It’s a feeling that more and more American women have chased at tattoo parlors in recent years, seeking art, therapy and — increasingly — tributes to Dolly Parton. And women aren’t only in the client chair: they’re taking a tight hold of the tattooing needle, bringing a rebellious generation of artists to what was long a male-dominated trade. As tattooing faces a cultural reckoning, women are leading the charge.

The needle delivering mental health healing

McCamish left the studio feeling renewed. The experience had been more “intimate” than previous appointments at parlors dominated by male artists. On the drive home, McCamish toyed with the possibility of learning to tattoo. 

“I would really love to be part of something like this,” she recalled. McCamish finally became a licensed artist after two years, including a year-long apprenticeship. 

McCamish had been overwhelmed by anxiety when she made the appointment. For nearly a decade, she had been the face of an international sexual assault case. As a teenager, she traveled to the United Kingdom to attend university at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Within 48 hours of arrival, McCamish was sexually assaulted by her roommate. 

When she brought the allegations to the administration, she was rebuffed. McCamish later learned that five other women were also victims of the same man. She and another victim took the case to court and won. The case set a legal precedent in the UK, requiring universities to investigate sexual assault allegations. When the decision was published, the floodgates opened, and women across the UK began sharing their stories with McCamish. She was working on creating a documentary about sexual violence when she reached her limit.

“I don’t know if I can talk about sexual violence every day for my life,” McCamish remembered thinking.

These days, McCamish heads Pink Ink, a mobile, Barbie-esque tattoo studio. She parks her caravan studio at breweries across Knoxville, Tennessee offering fine-line tattoos as well as compassion-building, sometimes therapeutic conversations that spill out like ink over hours-long sessions. Her most recent success was a Dolly Parton-inspired flash sale fundraiser for the Imagination Library, a reading initiative started by Parton in 1995. In just one day, McCamish tattooed 48 dainty butterflies on country music fans, raising $2,600 in donations for the Imagination Library.  

Demand was so high, McCamish told Straight Arrow, that she quietly repeated the fundraiser two days later, tattooing another 31 butterflies.

The fundraiser, McCamish explained, was a fitting tribute to the country music star, who was known for her philanthropy and uncompromisable ideals. Urban legends even describe Parton as a tattoo fiend, notorious for hidden ink, which was allegedly covered in sleeves and skin-colored gloves — a rumor that McCamish acknowledges, yet dismisses. (Parton was definitely inked up, McCamish said, but the gloves, she believes, were to hide signs of aging.) 

How did tattoos move from fringe subculture to mainstream trend?

These days, “flash” tattoos like McCamish’s Parton-inspired butterflies, where artists offer pre-designed pieces for set prices, are becoming increasingly popular. They’re faster and more affordable than custom-designed tattoos. Great for a party. No longer do tattoos need to be serious, memorial pieces; body art can also be a playground for pop culture references, signs of fandom or even just because. 

To tattoo history enthusiast and artist Bob De Niro, the shift toward fun, trendy ink isn’t a revelation. In the 1800s, American tattooing was largely reported at circus “freak shows,” De Niro said, largely done with rudimentary designs lifted from advertisements. Tattoos then shifted toward the traditional style, where themes like anchors, pin-up girls, and sparrows became iconic images, rocketing artists like Don Ed Hardy and Sailor Jerry to the forefront. As technology and technique evolved, so did popular styles.

By the 1990s, tattoo designs were heavily influenced by popular culture. De Niro remembers the cartoon craze, when tattoos depicted characters like Mighty Mouse and the “Looney Tunes” characters Tweety Bird and Taz. Tattooing caught a wave in the 2000s with reality shows like “LA Ink” and “Ink Master,” De Niro noted, bringing female artists like Kat Von D to the mainstream. With an expansion of styles and a growing mainstream acceptance, fans grew too.

“Now, people are becoming actual collectors, like they’re tattoo enthusiasts,” De Niro said. Collectors, he explained, function like walking art galleries: Individuals research and seek out tattoos in specific styles or by particular artists, then stockpile as many as possible.

In the modern era, tattooing has been symbolic of alternative subcultures, largely associated with negative stereotypes. Growing up, Marc De La Rosa was told tattoos were socially unacceptable. Ink was for “people that were in gangs or just got out of prison,” De La Rosa explained.

“That’s what I saw growing up,” said De La Rosa, a fireman and military veteran boasting 10 tattoos ranging from military imagery to his favorite holiday, Halloween. “Now, that’s changed.”

Once considered a marker of gang affiliation and underground societies, tattoos are now shedding their negative reputation. Across America, 32% of adults have at least one tattoo, while 22% have two or more, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study. 

How did women become the majority of tattoo artists?

And women are out ahead: 27% of men have tattoos, compared with 38% of women. Sound like a standalone stat? It isn’t. 

A 2012 Harris Poll found that for the first time since the study began, women were more likely to be tattooed than men, measuring 23% to 19%. So it’s no surprise that female tattoo artists are also on the up. While a 2010 New York Times article found that one in six tattoo artists were women, recent studies estimate that women now account for 59% of artists.

During the pandemic, tattooing saw an influx, with new artists dubbed “COVID babies” entering into apprenticeships. More people stayed at home, De Niro said, and supplies like pigments and pens, once only available to licensed shops and artists, could easily be purchased on Amazon, lowering barriers to entry for hobbyists. Technological developments, like improved machines and the development of fine-line tattoo styles, have also expanded the field. 

It’s a change embraced by women in the field, like McCamish and veteran tattoo artist Renee Santagata, who has been tattooing for 16 years. Santagata is one of Houston’s few “anime artists,” known for inking fans with portraits of characters from franchises like “Dragon Ball Z,” “Naruto Shippuden” and “Chainsaw Man.” An anime fan since childhood, Santagata revels in her art being tattooed on clients, especially when she remembers how hard she worked to grow her career.

Born and raised in Connecticut, Santagata remembers seeing only three tattoo parlors in her hometown — and even fewer female artists.

“They existed, but they just were far and few between,” Santagata told Straight Arrow. “I didn’t work with another female in the industry for the first eight years of tattooing.”

When Santagata began her career in 2010, the tattoo industry was dominated by male artists who often declined to share their techniques. Information about tattooing was passed down by word-of-mouth, largely through hands-on experience and shop apprenticeships, Santagata explained.

Early in her career, Santagata attempted to venture into tattooing at a local shop in Connecticut. She was immediately rejected. Instead, she became a “scratcher,” a self-taught, unlicensed amateur artist, giving free tattoos to close friends from her living room with supplies purchased from a store in New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood. (“We don’t promote that,” she says now.) Moonlighting as a Starbucks barista, Santagata spent her free time drawing, slowly building a portfolio. 

She still recalls how her hands trembled when she brought her portfolio to a Connecticut artist she admired, in hopes of earning an apprenticeship. He told her to return in a month with new drawings. 

When she showed up again with a new stack of sketches 30 days later, her mentor admitted he’d only been joking: He hadn’t realized how serious she’d been about her dream. 

How woman-owned tattoo studios build safe spaces

“I just don’t feel like a lot of women were given a chance because it was a very male-dominated field,” Santagata told Straight Arrow. “It was a boys’ club.”

The working environment during her apprenticeship wasn’t what she imagined. Women at the shop were often objectified, she said — a common problem that she said remains largely unchecked in the industry.

After years of working in a male-dominated space, Santagata opened Okami Ink, her woman-owned parlor with a majority-female staff. Women-owned parlors, like Pink Ink and Okami Ink, are popping up across the nation, creating safe spaces for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

Okami client Sarah Austin said she enjoys how “safe” she feels with women tattooers. 

“I’m always looking for women-owned shops because I do feel like it’s generally a more inclusive environment,” Austin told Straight Arrow.

For Okami artists and “COVID babies” Kathryn Booth and Monica Campos, the safety of a woman-owned shop is something to be grateful for.

“Before my time…if you were a woman trying to get into the industry, it was understood that you’re probably going to be taken advantage of,” Campos told Straight Arrow. 

Jobs for women were largely relegated to poorly paid assistants, colloquially called “shop help” or pejoratively, “shop bitch” — a term still used in parlors, Campos said.

Booth’s first encounter with the industry’s inequality came on her 18th birthday, during her first tattoo appointment. Bursting with excitement, she asked the artist what it would look like for her to join the industry. 

His response was jarring. 

“I, personally, would hire you because you’re nice to look at,” he told her as he inked a Bible verse between her shoulder blades.

Despite growing progress, tattooers acknowledge that the industry is far from perfect. Toxic work environments and tattooers are being called out online, Booth said, as a consequence of the Me Too movement, but accused artists can easily restart their careers by moving and rebranding under a different name. Likewise, “gatekeepy” artists and shops do still exist, Santagata explained, but the influx of new artists is a plus. Tattoos have become more common, McCamish added, and the clientele has expanded toward women of all ages. 

The future of the industry promises a new dawn. 

“I think female tattooers are here to stay,” Santagata said.

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