How we review.

Aftercare products

Every product is bought anonymously at retail. We apply each to a fresh tattoo under controlled conditions (same session, same artist, same ink) and track:

• Day 1–3: absorption, irritation, ooze containment
• Day 4–14: flake quality, itching, saturation at peak peel
• Week 3–6: final saturation, color vibrancy, line-edge sharpness

We compare across at least three tattoos per product to account for skin variance.

Artists

Artists are added based on:

• Consistency of portfolio across at least 2 years of public work
• Client review patterns (Instagram, Google, Yelp)
• Apprenticeship and shop lineage when verifiable
• Style specialization vs. generalist output

Artists cannot pay for inclusion. We do not accept "list me" requests. If an artist has a beef with how we described them, write us — we'll look again.

Shops

Same criteria, applied at the shop level — plus health board inspection history where it's publicly available.

Takedown policy

Any listed artist or shop can request removal by emailing takedown@reviewtattoo.com from an address associated with their shop website or domain. We remove listings within 48 hours of a verified request.

We also honor correction requests — if we've described your work inaccurately, tell us what's off and we'll fix it within a day.

What we will not do

• Accept "sponsored" rankings.
• Take free product in exchange for coverage.
• Publish affiliate links for products we haven't tested.
• Scrape or auto-generate "top 10" lists without human verification.