In today’s world, illegal tattoos and piercings have become a much more common trend among teens. Teens look to ink or metal as forms of expression or fashion statements. The NYS law however, states all piercings and tattoos done without parental consent under the age of 18 are illegal.

At Curtis High School, students who do get illegally inked or pierced are often going to unsafe and unsanitary places.

Four students who were interviewed for this article claim to have gotten their piercings in the back of tattoo shops or other stores who have no connection to body art at all.  Several teenagers also admitted to getting a friend to give them a tattoo or piercing in a home setting  with just a needle and ice cube. Home made tattoos use Indian Ink, a type of ink used for writing and drawing, ‘pick n’ poke’, or ‘jail ink’. In ‘pick n’ poke’, a needle that is sharpened is dipped in the ink and poked into the skin a dot at a time, hence the name ‘pik n’ poke’. Jail ink is commonly done by burning cotton on a light bulb and mixing the soot with urine. Nasty but true. All of these ways are highly unsanitary and completely unsafe. Teenagers takes these risks often to save money and to get around the new state law.

Let’s face it, tattoos and piercings are not always carried out under the best sterile conditions. In cases such as these, students at Curtis are becoming more prone to transmission of hepatitis C and other infectious diseases during tattooing or piercing.

“Realistically, students will still find a way to do it.  In cases such as these students have to make sure needles are sterilized; unclean needles could transmit HIV or Hepatitis. When it comes to illegal piercings or tattoos, it really is risky business,” said Kristan Rosenthal, Health Educator at the Curtis Health Center.

There’s one little factor students who are getting tattoos at young ages are forgetting, If the underlying muscle gets bigger, the skin has to stretch to cover it. The tattoo is in the skin, and therefore, it is going to stretch as well. Tattoos done at ages such as 14 or 15, will almost positively stretch by the time you are 21. The fierce tiger you had tattooed on your biceps might become a large unrecognizable black smudge over time. Students do not seem to be realizing that the NYS law that requires 18 years of age, might just be requiring 18 years of age for a good reason.

I myself, have gotten an illegal nose piercing when I was thirteen. The place I went to was suggested to me by a friend and completely illegal; a clothing store that had an extra ‘’hidden’’ room in the back where the piercings were done. Not surprisingly, the piercing got infected. Looking back on that experience now I see just how much of a risk I really took.

Shirley Fernandez is a sophomore who has gotten both her  tongue and navel pierced. When asked her age, she lied saying she was the legal age, never once being asked to display identification. She is only 15 years of age, because of the NYS law, that makes these piercings illegal.   “My friends like them, and my mom didn’t mind at all, she likes them too. I guess it really just depends on what kind of piercings you get or what kind of parents you have,” said Fernandez.

Student Anthony Major is a freshman at Curtis High School and has the first letter of his name, “A”,tattooed on his right shoulder. Major was only 14 years of age when he got this tattoo, far from the legal age of 18. “I got this (tattoo) almost a year ago by a friend of mine. Nobody really minds, since I always wear  t-shirts, nobody really sees it either.”

Common tattoos and piercings frequently seen around Curtis consist of a variety of naval piercings, snake bites, name tattoos, tongue rings, tribal tattoos, eyebrow piercings, and septum piercings.  There are about 2800 students at Curtis High School, many of which have tattoos and piercings; excluding the students who have reached the legal age, that still leaves a large amount that have illegal body art.