Tattoo Kit Reviews Directory

Pros and Cons of Tattoo Kits

Tattoo kits come with their own advantages and disadvantages. Understanding both will help you make the right decision for your tattooing.

The Advantages of Buying a Tattoo Kit

When you’re brand-new to tattooing, a tattoo kit can get you on your way fast without having to spend hours doing research or hundreds of dollars on expensive tattoo supplies.

If you’re new to tattooing and not sure what to get, a tattoo kit will give you everything you need to get set up so you can start tattooing on fake skin.

A tattoo starter kit  will include the following tattoo equipment:

Most people, when they want to try tattooing for the first time, will search for an “affordable tattoo gun kit.” 

There are two things you need to know about this. First, is that many professional tattoo artists will mock people who call these “tattoo gun kits.” Instead, you’d use the term tattoo machine kits. 

Additionally, tattoo kits let you get everything you need for a pretty cheap price, and that’s great for new tattoo artists who need to find an easy tattoo setup to start practicing. However, you get what you pay for. 

If you want to be a professional tattoo artist, you won’t be using the material you get in a kit for very long. You’ll want to upgrade to better materials.

Tattoo kits make it easy to get started within a few moments of opening the box. The materials inside tend to be beginner-friendly. 

Most tattoo kits come with a rotary tattoo machine or a tattoo pen machine. Rotary tattoo machines very easy to set up and don’t require a lot of knowledge about tattooing beforehand. 

You can find our top pick for the best tattoo kit in our article, “Best Beginner Tattoo Kit.”

The Drawbacks of Tattoo Kits

While tattoo kits can be helpful to new artists, they aren’t a permanent solution.

With tattoo kits, you get what you pay for. And while kits can keep costs down, it’s important to understand that this might also mean an inconsistent power supply, a cheap foot pedal that’s easy to damage, and plastic-feeling fake skins that are hard to work with.

A tattoo kit will give you what you need to practice on fake skin. However, most tattoo kits come with a tattoo pen that cannot be properly sterilized without an autoclave.

That means that even some of the highest recommended tattoo kits for beginners have to be used in a professional tattoo shop to be safe for people. 

On top of that, the tattoo needles and tattoo ink inside is not safe for human skin. Most tattoo kits are assembled in areas with relaxed safety regulations. So, even if the ink says its safe for human skin and the needles say they’re sterilized…that might not be the case.

A “professional tattoo kit” isn’t really a thing. Artists working in the industry buy their supplies separately.

Some tattoo machines will be labeled as “professional tattoo kits” because the machines come with the appropriate bottle bags and a trial-size box for artists to test out new tattoo cartridge needles. 

What to Look for in a Tattoo Kit

Picking the right tattoo kit for you will require a little research. However, there are a few things to look out for while you’re shopping.

Quality Tattoo Machine

A lot of the tattoo kits out there will try to draw you in with fancy phrases like “advanced gear system” or “space aluminum frame.” The best tattoo machine kits will simply have a machine with a reliable and quiet operation.

Power Supply

A consistent power supply makes all the difference. If you don’t have a steady stream of power going into your machine, it’ll be impossible to tattoo straight lines or do consistent color packing because your machine will randomly stop moving.

Review from an Experienced Tattoo Artist

Professional tattoo artists will sometimes try out kits to see if they’re good enough for new artists to learn with. They’ll go through their entire tattoo process to see:

Our Tattoo Kit Reviews

To help you decide on a kit, we’ve taken a look at the top-rated “best tattoo kits” on Amazon and other popular sites. You’ll find our thoughts on the popular Wormhole Tattoo Kit, the Dragonhawk Tattoo Kit, and more.

We test each kit by doing a tattoo design on practice skin and let you know whether the kit is worth the money.

Become a Tattoo Artist With the Artist Accelerator Program

Having a career in tattooing is not only fulfilling, but it’s also the most stable way to make a living as an artist. However, for decades, the process to become a tattoo artist has been notoriously difficult. 

The apprenticeship process requires aspiring tattoo artists to work 50-60 hours a week without pay for 2-4 years. That, combined with the toxic culture of abusing apprentices, makes getting into the industry almost impossible for newcomers. 

That’s why we created the Artist Accelerator Program. Our online course provides a simple, structured way of learning to tattoo that has been proven to work by over 2500 successful students, with many of them having gone on to open their own shops all around the world. 

Inside the program, we’ll take you through every step of the tattooing process in 9 clear, easy-to-follow modules and support you along the way within the Tattooing 101 Mastermind online community.

In the Mastermind group, you’ll collaborate with other students, get answers to your questions, and receive personalized video feedback on your artwork and tattoos from professional tattoo artists. With this friendly community of both new and experienced tattoo artists, you’ll never be stuck again. 

When you join the Artist Accelerator Program, you’ll have instant access to the full course and the Mastermind community, as well as our 30-Day Flash Challenge and recorded interviews with tattoo artists from all over the world.