Growing up in the desert gave me an early education in what the sun really does to skin and it was personal. Before I became a cosmetic tattoo artist, I was already reading skin–my own skin, without even knowing it—seeing the dehydration patterns, the UV damage, the fine lines that show up decades early.

So when I say desert tattooing is its own specialty, I say it with intense personal interest artists not from here genuinely don’t understand and underestimate.

This makes cosmetic tattooing—where our margins of error are the thickness of tissue paper—especially demanding. Sun-damaged or dehydrated skin holds pigment differently. In a single eyebrow the dermis can be tough as nails to penetrate in one area and completely fragile in the next.

Because I’ve lived my entire life in this climate, I’ve developed a deep intuition for desert skin. I adjust needle depth, pressure, pigment viscosity, and stretch based on subtle changes. I understand that what looks like “normal dryness” to an out-of-state artist is actually compromised barrier function.