19-05-2025
Cherry Valley tattoo artists help clients remove unwanted ink
CHERRY VALLEY, Ill. (WTVO) — With warmer weather comes more opportunities for stateline residents to display their tattoos.
But, what happens when some gets a bad tattoo or has one they no longer want anyone to see?That's when the art of the coverup comes in.
'You could cover up just about anything,' said Frank Benitez, a tattoo artist at in Cherry Valley. 'You just have to keep going over it. If it's dark and you want color, you blast over it with color.'
Common coverup requests involve names of former partners, which Benitez described as 'fairly easy' to obscure due to their simple, scribbled appearance. Coverups comprise about 25% of his business.
Laz Eco, another artist at Sanctuary Collective, says he's done some memorable coverups in his nine years in the business. He recalls a pair of friends who came in requesting matching ink to celebrate each other. It didn't last long.
'About a month later, one girl came in and said, 'I am not friends with that person anymore. I need this covered up,'' Eco said.
Some tattoos are almost made to be covered up. Arist Ravyn Novak remembers one she called an 'outrageous' request.
'Two guys came in once in my old shop to get a really outrageous tattoo—the only outrageous tattoo I've ever done,' Novak said. 'They wanted to get each other as stick figures holding hands, and also holding their male parts together in like a handshake.'
The first man got the tattoo of the odd union on his upper thigh. His friend? He 'chickened out,' Novak said.
Depending on size and detail, a tattoo a take few minutes or several hours or even days to complete.
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