Nell Carrow
Bold traditional · lettering · cover-ups
Twelve years in, six of them here. Nell will tell you when a design is too small to hold its lines for twenty years, which is most of the time.
- Hourly
- £120
- Full day
- £780
- Next slot
- 3 weeks
Custom tattooing · Stokes Croft, Bristol
We only draw the line once.
A six-chair custom studio on Jamaica Street since 2014. You get the price in writing before you pay a deposit, and the council registration is on this page rather than in a frame you never read.
Walk-ins Thu–Sat from 11am · flash only, first come, photo ID required
- Minimum charge
- £70any piece, any size
- Hourly
- £110–£140by artist
- Full day
- £700–£900seven hours in the chair
- Deposit
- £80comes off the total
The chairs
Six residents, one guest chair, and an honest wait
Nobody here takes every style. Pick the artist whose work looks like the thing in your head — that matters far more than picking the studio. Waits are what they say they are; if a chair is closed it says closed.
Ross Deakin
Blackwork · ornamental · geometric
Draws banding and ornamental work freehand onto the arm before any stencil goes near it, so the pattern actually meets at the inside of the wrist.
- Hourly
- £115
- Full day
- £740
- Next slot
- 2 weeks
Marta Vidal
Fine line · script · single-needle
Books reopen for October on the first Monday of September. Marta takes first-timers and will happily let you walk to the mirror three times before she starts.
- Hourly
- £110
- Full day
- £700
- Reopens
- 1 Sept
Guest chair
The seventh chair
Residencies of one to four weeks
We keep one station free for visiting artists — 41 of them since 2014. Guests set their own rate and their own books, and they go up on the board four weeks ahead. In August it is Ilse Renner, hand-poked ornamental, from Rotterdam.
- Currently
- Ilse Renner
- Until
- 23 Aug
- Then
- Open
What it costs
The whole rate card, before you ask for it
Tattooing is sold as time, not as an object. Below is every figure we charge. You will still get a quote for your specific piece — but you should not have to walk into a shop to find out whether you can afford to be in it.
Minimum charge
£70Covers the station, a new needle, tube, ink caps and barrier film, and the artist's time — whether the piece takes twenty minutes or an hour.
Hourly
£110–£140per hourFor work that fits in one sitting. The rate is the artist's, not the studio's — it is on every chair above.
Half day
£380–£4503½ hoursCheaper per hour than hourly, because the station is yours and we are not turning it over.
Full day
£700–£9007 hoursSleeves, backs, thighs and anything freehand. Most large work is several of these, booked as a run of dates.
Consultation
Free20 minutesIn person or by email. We do not charge for talking about it, and we would rather you came in twice than sat in the chair unsure.
The deposit
£80, and it comes off the total
This is the term customers most often get wrong, so: the deposit is not a fee and it is not on top. It is the first £80 of what you were going to pay anyway. On work over £600 it is 25% instead.
- Send the idea Placement, rough size, reference images, and any dates you can't do.
- Get a quote and a date Usually within two working days, from the artist, in writing.
- Pay the deposit Card in the shop or bank transfer. The date is not yours until it lands.
- See the design on the day Drawn ahead, adjusted in front of you, stencilled and checked in the mirror before anything permanent happens.
Moving it: tell us 72 hours ahead and the deposit moves with you, once. Less than that, or a no-show, and it is gone — the chair sat empty and nobody else could have it.
Flash
Drawn already, priced already, on the wall
Flash is a finished design waiting for someone to want it. It is the fastest and cheapest way into a good tattoo, and on Thursday to Saturday you can walk in and have one the same day. Repeatable designs can be tattooed more than once; one-offs go once and come down.
Snake and peony
- Size
- 18 cm
- Sitting
- 3½ hrs
£420Repeatable
Chrysanthemum skull
- Size
- 14 cm
- Sitting
- 3 hrs
£340One-off
Hannya, small
- Size
- 11 cm
- Sitting
- 2½ hrs
£260Repeatable
Dragon, forearm
- Size
- 22 cm
- Sitting
- Full day
£780Gone
What we take on
Six kinds of work, and one we turn down
Custom
You bring the idea and the references; the artist draws it. Most of what leaves here is custom, and it is why the waits exist.
Flash and walk-in
Thursday to Saturday from 11am, first come. Priced on the sheet, no deposit, photo ID at the door.
Cover-ups and reworks
Send a clear photograph in daylight before you book. Some things cover and some do not, and we would rather tell you that by email than in the chair.
Large-scale and freehand
Sleeves, backs and thighs, drawn on the body rather than printed onto it. Booked as a run of day sessions, usually three to six weeks apart.
Touch-ups
One free on our own work within eight weeks of it healing. Hands, fingers and feet are excluded, because they drop ink no matter who put it there.
What we won't do
Anyone under 18, with or without a parent. Anyone who has been drinking. Hands, necks and faces on people who are not already heavily tattooed. Nobody else's copyrighted artwork.
Registration and hygiene
The certificate on our wall, on your screen
Every tattoo studio in England is required to register its premises and every person tattooing in them, and to display the certificate and the council's byelaws where you can read them. Ours are by the front desk. They are also here, because a frame on a wall is no use to you before you have decided to walk in.
Registered under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982
- Registering authority
- Bristol City Council
Public Health & Protection - Premises registration
- BCC/SP/028712 Jamaica Street, BS2 8JP
- Registered persons
- All seven artists, individually. Guest artists are registered before their residency starts, not during it.
- Insurance
- £5m public liability and treatment risk, renewed each March.
- Single-use, opened in front of you. Needles, cartridges, tubes, ink caps, razors and film. Sharps go straight into the bin on the bench, which is collected under contract.
- Inks. We use REACH-compliant ink only, and the batch numbers go on your record card. If you want to know exactly what is going into your skin, ask and we will show you the bottle.
- 18 and over. No exceptions, ever. Tattooing anyone under 18 is a criminal offence under the Tattooing of Minors Act 1969 and a parent cannot consent on your behalf. Bring a physical passport or driving licence — a photo of one is not ID.
- Consent and medical form, every time. It asks about blood thinners, diabetes, keloid scarring, allergies, pregnancy and skin conditions. Some answers mean we tattoo you differently; a few mean we don't tattoo you that day.
Records are kept under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, held for three years, in a locked cabinet rather than a shoebox. Complaints go to the studio first and to Bristol City Council's Public Health & Protection team if we don't put it right.
Healed work
Fresh work photographs well. Healed work tells the truth.
Anything can be made to look sharp ten minutes after the wipe. These are at six weeks and beyond, which is when you find out whether the lines held.
Afterwards
Six weeks, and most of it is leaving it alone
Aftercare is usually buried in a menu somewhere, to be read once you have already paid. It belongs before you book, because how much you can be bothered to do for six weeks is part of the decision.
Day 0–1
Dressed
You leave in film. It stays on as long as we tell you. Plasma and a bit of ink will collect under it — that is meant to happen and is not the tattoo coming off.
Day 2–7
Washing
Clean hands, unscented non-antibacterial soap, rinse properly, pat dry with kitchen roll — not a towel. Thin layer of balm, three times a day. Too much balm does more damage than too little.
Week 2–4
Flaking
It will look dull, patchy and slightly waxy, and you will be convinced it has gone wrong. Do not pick it. No swimming, saunas or steam rooms.
Week 4–6
Settled
Now you can judge it, and now we can touch it up if it needs it. Keep it out of direct sun and off sunbeds for another month, then use factor 50 on it forever.
Regulars
What people say when they come back
"I'd been quoted 'about four hundred, maybe' by two other shops. Nell quoted £780 for the day, in writing, before I paid a penny — and it came to £780."
"Ross redrew the join on the day so the banding actually met on the inside of my wrist. Cost me an extra forty minutes and he didn't charge for it."
"First tattoo at 41 and I was genuinely frightened. Marta moved the stencil three times and let me go and look in the mirror twice before she picked the machine up."
Book in
Tell us the idea. We'll tell you the price.
Placement, rough size, references and the dates you can't do. You'll get a quote and a date from the artist, usually within two working days, and nothing is booked until you've seen the number.