It’s come to our attention over the last month that there has been an uptick in trash talk about us. One young lady went into another shop to purchase jewelry and upon finding out who did her piercing, was told that it was done wrong, that she would need to take it out; let it heal; an have it re-pierced by them, all for a fee. She came by to let us see it and nothing was wrong with the piercing (we have photos), they apparently just didn’t have the jewelry she wanted. After purchasing her jewelry and having it switched out, she left happy.

Another incident occurred when a woman, who had already paid for her tattoo in full (a couple of small tattoos actually) said ‘a friend’ of hers who works in a shop in Nashville told her she was being ‘price gouged’. First of all, how do you price gouge someone for a luxury item like a tattoo? Secondly, the two small tattoos took about an hour an twenty minutes to perform and cost $140, consistent with our $100 per hour rate on tattoos that don’t fall into our 5-hour ‘special’ category. She came into the shop asking why it was going to cost so much and almost found herself being asked to leave for her trouble.

Two things: Simply put, if you are quoted a price at a tattoo shop that is too high for your tastes, leave. You can always find someone cheaper and Lighthouse Tattoo is NOT in the business of price matching. Which brings us to our second point: While you can always find someone cheaper, BETTER is another story. Which explains all the trash talk.

You know why you never see Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, talking about how slow everyone else is? He doesn’t complain about the fit of his shoes; the weather; the propensity for cheating; he just runs faster that everyone else, smiles, and takes his gold medals home. You see, Usain Bolt doesn’t need to talk trash about his competition to make himself feel better, because he IS better, and he knows it. We feel the same way.

Now, please don’t get our confidence confused with cockiness. We have a good relationship with the artists at Bright Ideas, they do great work, and we don’t want people going in there saying that we’re talking about them, we’re not. Like I said, we consider those folks our friends, we like what they do. We also maintain a neutral position about that other shop in town, Tri-Star Tattoos. We also expect them to say that they’re the best, if you don’t honestly believe that, or aren’t working diligently to obtain that goal, you are definitely in the wrong line of work. We don’t know them, but we certainly don’t have a problem with them, and neither of these shops appear to be the ones who are trash talking. So good on them, y’all are invited to our Halloween party on the 16th BTW!

The next time you go into a shop and they start saying bad things about their competition, ask them to show you what they’re talking about, and not just more trash talk, ask to see photos of the work they’ve done. We’re going to bet another shop won’t be willing to show you our work, because they know you’ll leave and come here. That’s the facts.

Besides, who wants to be around all that negativity in the first place?

If you want the best tattoos Lebanon and Middle Tennessee have to offer, at a fair price, with excellent customer service, a fun, clean atmosphere, and none of the BS that is so rife in this industry, you definitely want to put Lighthouse Tattoo on your list of places to visit.