There’s no doubt getting a tattoo can cause some discomfort, but there are areas of the body that are a little more painful than others to get tattooed. If you’re keen to get inked for the first time, but you’re worried about your pain threshold, consider getting a tattoo in an area of the body that doesn’t hurt quite so much as others.
The best place to get a tattoo for the least amount of ouch factor
Remember this rule of thumb – the closer to the bone and the less fat in the area, the more painful your tattoo will be. Of course, pain is subjective. What might be excruciating for some, may hardly cause others to blink! But here are the top four places on your body that generally the least painful places to get a tattoo:
Outer shoulders
The outside of your upper arms can be tattooed relatively easily without causing too much pain. The reason for this is because there’s quite a lot of flesh in this area of the body, and there are also very few nerve endings.
Those getting their outer shoulders inked have consistently said it feels like a dull background pain, which shouldn’t cause you too much grief, especially if you’re getting a detailed tattoo that might take a few hours or a couple of sessions to complete.
Upper back
Your upper back area is normally a relatively pain-free area for a tattoo artist to work on, provided they avoid your spine. But the upper back, outside of where your spine rests, is normally quite pain-free because it’s full of muscle and away from your central nervous system.
Fingers
If you’ve ever slammed your fingers in a door, you might wince at the thought of being tattooed here, but the truth is, finger tattoos are small which means they don’t take long to complete… essentially that means any pain you feel doesn’t last too long.
Plus, most of the area on the finger is away from the finger bone running up the centre, and once the artist moves away from this small spot, the pain rapidly subsides.
Neck
As a general rule, the higher up the neck, the more painful the tattoo, as there is less fat and the artist is more likely to get close to the bone.
However, there are not too many nerve endings on the lower part of the back of the neck where its a bit more fleshy, so this area typically isn’t too painful to get inked.
Ready for your pain-free (ish!) tattoo?
Are you inclined to get a tattoo now you know there are less painful placements on the body than others?
Sure, there’s no such thing as a ‘pain-free’ tattoo but there is certainly truth to the fact that some areas are less painful to have a design imprinted onto your skin than others.
Feeling inclined to get inked? While the studios are closed during the pandemic, you can still book in your next tattoo session here.
