Preserving the tattoos of the dead?

Hiya everyone!
My name is Colin, I'm from Ohio, and I got my first tattoo when I was 16. Now I work for the National Association for the Preservation of Skin Art (NAPSA) at SaveMyInk.com, we are the folks who allow you to arrange for a tattoo to be removed and preserved when you die. We operate on the internet, so I figured it might something you folks would be interested in too.

What do you think about preserving the tattoos of a loved one?

I work within the community section on the website myself, but I can answer some questions if you're curious!
Please keep an open mind!

 

This is borderline creepy to me Also, I do not understand the logic behind preserving someone's tattoo.

 

I think you will be famous. I am sure local media in my country will coverage the news about your organization sometime soon, followed by a global trend within the next few years. On the other hand, there will be a lot of resistance from some religion-affiliated groups, too. I can understand, tho, that tattoo is like a legacy, a very personal indeed, that someone would want to pass to their family.

 

Okay, I'll bite. How exactly do you preserve a tattoo? Peel the skin off of the corpse and then tan it like leather? Maybe make it into a belt?

Or do you simply take a picture of it and frame it?

 

Haha you'd be right! If the tattoo is on your face or genitals, our policy is that we will not preserve it.

 

So, to re-state my question above: how exactly do you preserve it? What I mean is, what is the deliverable once your company is hired and how do you actually do it? E.g., do you go around to funeral homes with a scalpel? And what does the client end up with as a memento of the tat?

 

Omg man i know you love tattoos but this is really creepy.
Even if someone let you , how would you preserve it? If you manage to succeed in this tho i would like to see the museum of the people who had tattoos but died. )

 

Yeah, like that idea is going to catch on. But then again, the weird world we live in, it might.

 

Well, since the OP is not quickly responding to my questions, I took it upon myself to find the website and dig into it for a couple of minutes. It appears that they take the tattooed skin of the corpse, tan it like leather (at least that it is what it looks like) and then frame it under glass. The person with the tattoo names a "beneficiary" to whom this company sends a "kit" for the person to use to harvest the flesh and the company sends it to them when they are notified that the person has died. I presume that the "beneficiary" is a mortician who is licensed to cut up a corpse because otherwise there could be legal issues about mutilating a dead body.

Not my cup of tea, that's for sure.

 

At first the topic made me feel a little uneasy, and it definitely isn't my cup o' tea, but then I REALLY started to think about.

A few years ago, a practice became popular among those grieving for their lost loved ones where a company takes hair or cremated ashes of the loved ones and turn them into diamonds. Even that idea creeped me out at first to think that I'd be wearing a dead person on a ring or a necklace, and when my friend lost her mom and considered this I told her that I just couldn't understand why.

Then I lost my own father back in September of 2014, and the first thing I thought was that I wanted to keep a small part of him with me. I mean there were his personal items, but I wanted something closer to him (I currently have a lock of his hair). My Dad was never cremated (my Mormon grandparents put their foot down on that), but if he was, I definitely would have turned a part of my Dads ashes into a beautiful, blue (his favorite color) diamond jewel.

http://www.lifegem.com/

When you lose someone their corpse isn't creepy anymore. There comes a sense of yearning to be close to them, even if it's only a part of them.

Now, I'd never want to have my Dad's tanned skin hanging on my wall, but I guess I can't judge if I was considering taking some of his ashes and turning it into diamonds.

Each grieve differently. Each cope differently. Each of us find comfort in the loss of our loved ones differently. Whatever anyone decides to do to memorialize their loved ones isn't for anyone else, but the individual who suffered the loss.