Most of my sessions are booked as 6-hour appointments Monday through Thursday, and start between 8:00-11:00 am. Unless we discuss otherwise, I’d recommend booking full days spaced 3-4 weeks apart. Make sure to give yourself 2 weeks of healing time after each appointment before you expose your new tattoo to sun or water.

After finishing your consultation with me and deciding to move forward with the project, you will be required to pay a nonrefundable deposit to book a 90-minute planning session with me. The deposit will then be applied to final your final session.

There are two conditions that can forfeit your deposit—cancelling or rescheduling an appointment within 48 hours, and ghosting your project by leaving a gap of 6 months or more between appointments. In either case, you’ll be allowed to rebook as soon as you leave a new deposit. I love my clients and I want to finish all of the projects I start, so if you find yourself being a repeat offender you may be asked to prepay your appointments so that we can keep working together.

I charge $300/hr with a $1500 minimum, and a normal, full-day session gives us about 5 hours together (plus a break for lunch), so you can expect each session to cost around $1500. The hourly rate of your project is guaranteed for ONE YEAR from the date you start your project.

Kinda! Our studio is hard to find and I don’t mind that at all, because 1) secret clubhouses are fun, and 2) we don’t take walk ins, so there’s no reason to be easy to find! Our address is 110 Southwest Blvd Ste B, Kansas City, MO 64108, and the entrance is in the alley behind Cafe Corazon which shares our address on the Southwest Boulevard side of the building. Once you walk in for the first time you’ll totally get it, but it’s a real IYKYK location and it’s not easy to find for the first time—even Google gets it wrong part of the time. We’re a black door across from the Young Hemingway mural.

There are 3-hour paid parking spots all over the neighborhood, and we also provide complimentary all-day parking at the Webster Garage for our clients. It’s a two block walk from the studio, but it’s the closest all-day public parking there is. Bring your ticket with you to your appointment so we can validate it!

Definitely don’t park in any private lots. They’re crunchy about it.

• Your ID for your consent paperwork

• A water bottle. We have chilled spring water for you, and we’re going to want to keep you hydrated!

• A sweater/blanket/fuzzy socks… anything you can layer on to stay warm if you’re chilly. We keep the studio comfortable, but adrenaline may make you feel cold, and I want you to be as comfortable as possible.

• Any special snacks you love, in case you need a quick blood sugar (or dopamine) boost.

• Entertainment options, in case you need to check out a little. Don’t forget headphones if you want to listen!

Yes! Anything you do to care for your skin and improve your skin health before your appointment will make it faster and easier to get the tattoo results we want! Here are a few things you can do:

• Use sunscreen. Use 50+ SPF, and apply it every time you’re going to spend more than 15 minutes in the sun. This is the most important habit you can develop to keep your skin and your tattoo beautiful, so just pick something you don’t mind using. I like the cheap spray kind, and I keep a bottle everywhere.

• Exfoliate. Use a loofah or any type of exfoliating cloth with some body wash to gently scrub the area you’ll be tattooing. It will get your skin as even and smooth as possible, which will make the work quicker and more consistent. Work gently, you’re not trying to make the skin raw, and start a few weeks before your appointment so you can do it a few times if you notice the skin still feels rough.

• Moisturize. Regularly use some good moisturizer on the area leading up to your tattoo, especially after exfoliating.

• Hydrate. Drink plenty of water leading up to your appointment.

• Avoid alcohol for 24 hours before your tattoo appointment.

We have our favorite products available for purchase at the studio so you can walk away with everything you need!

You’ll need a mild soap approved for superficial wounds, and a hypoallergenic tattoo balm, ointment or salve to care for your tattoo.

You may also find it helpful to have a mild, fragrance-free lotion on hand for the late stages of healing, and a high SPF mineral sunscreen available for any sun exposure in the late stages of healing as well.

This varies a LOT based on placement and a bunch of other factors, and all tattoos hurt some, but I work hard to limit the amount of suffering you’ll experience in my chair.

I’ll work on your tattoo in an order that limits the amount of time we spend coming back to areas that are already inflamed. I’ll check in with you often to make sure you’re doing ok, and we’ll decide together on an amount of pain that’s acceptable, so that it not only never gets worse than you can handle, it never gets worse than you consent to. I also have safe, effective lidocaine products that can be really helpful in some circumstances.