Ashes Tattoo in Eastbourne
Key Takeaways
- The train from Eastbourne up to London and on to Crewe takes around four hours with no driving, against roughly four and a half hours behind the wheel.
- Nothing about your loved one’s ashes happens out of sight, and the portion is prepared in front of you before it enters the tattoo.
- A finished ashes tattoo looks like any other tattoo, because the meaning sits inside the ink rather than on the surface.
- Around a teaspoon of ashes is used, and the rest never leaves the container you carried it in.
An ashes tattoo carries a small amount of a person’s cremated remains within the ink itself, so that the tattoo holds not just their likeness or their name but a physical part of them. For grieving families in Eastbourne and right across the country, this is what Bubblegum Ink ®, a specialist studio in Sandbach, Cheshire, has done for over 20 + years now. There is no more permanent way to keep someone close, and because it can be done only once, the one thing that genuinely matters is the hands you place it in.
What people describe afterwards is a closeness that no urn on the mantel and no framed photograph ever gave them. There is nothing to visit and nothing to take down and hold. The person is simply there, carried in your skin through the ordinary hours of every day, for the whole of the rest of your life.
The Long Way North, Made Simple
There is no glossing over the distance: Eastbourne sits about as far south as England goes, out on the Sussex coast below Beachy Head, and the studio is the better part of 250 miles away. By car that is around four and a half hours. For most people, though, the train turns the journey into something far gentler than the mileage suggests, up to London and then a fast service on to Crewe, which lies only a few miles from the studio, the whole thing taking around four hours with your feet up rather than on the pedals.
Distance is rarely the deciding factor anyway. There is one portion of your loved one’s ashes and one chance to honour it, and that simple fact persuades people from the far south coast to travel to someone who has given decades to this single craft rather than to whoever is nearest. Most set aside a full day, and many say the journey itself, with time to think, becomes part of the leaving and the keeping both.
What Sets a Specialist Apart
Nearly all of the care in an ashes tattoo is invisible, spent before the needle is lifted, in the preparation of the ashes, and this is exactly where a specialist and an everyday studio diverge. Cremated remains, untouched, are coarse and unsterile and uneven in grain, and a tattooist who simply mixes them into ink as they are is leaving your healing to luck. That is never the approach here.
A small measure of your loved one’s ashes is brought to the correct particle size, cleaned, sterilised to a clinical standard and cleared of contaminants, before being prepared into the ink used that day. The process is careful, slow and treated with the gravity it deserves, and it is the reason a tattoo made this way heals exactly as any other does. The full account is on the are ashes tattoos safe page, and the ink itself on the adding ashes into tattoo ink page.
Kept in Plain View Throughout
There is one fear that tends to outweigh all the others, and it deserves the plainest possible answer: your loved one’s ashes never leave your sight. There is no back room, no closed door, no point at which they pass beyond where you can see. The small portion is prepared in front of you, and it enters the tattoo in front of you, every moment of it visible. This is not something offered only when asked. It is simply how the work is done, on every occasion.
Should handling the ashes yourself be more than you can bear on the day, that is understood completely, and you needn’t. Bring them as they are, and that careful part is carried out for you, while you watch or look away as you wish. The day takes its lead from you and from however grief happens to move that morning.
Further-Reaching Than You Might Guess
For a small private studio at the end of a Cheshire lane, the reach of its reputation is genuinely surprising. The work has appeared on the BBC and in press at home and abroad, and the memorial tattoo for Treo, among the most decorated military dogs in recent memory, became one of the most widely seen pieces of its kind in the world; the tattooing ashes into clients page tells it in full.
Paul Cutler, who runs the studio, is an award winning artist many times over, and yet the surest route to his door has always been a quiet recommendation from someone who was looked after well.
A Tribute Made Only for Them
No two of these tattoos are alike, because the people they hold were not. Yours might be a memorable image, a signature lifted from an old credit card, a date your family alone would know, a flower, a fragment of a song, or some small symbol whose meaning belongs only to the two of you. However it takes shape, it is given the same unhurried attention as every memorial that has come before. For first thoughts, the memorial tattoo design ideas and handwriting ashes tattoo pages are a gentle place to look, while the mum ashes tattoo, dad ashes tattoo and grandparent memorial tattoo pages show what others have chosen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Given how far it is, is it worth coming from Eastbourne at all?
People from the south coast decide it is, and for a clear reason: this can be done only once. They would rather travel to someone with around 20 + years in this single craft than risk it nearer home. The train via London takes about four hours with no driving, and most set the whole day aside, finding the journey becomes part of the occasion.
Could I make a weekend of it rather than rush there and back?
Many people do, particularly from this distance. There is no need to do it all in a single exhausting day, and breaking the journey or staying over can take the pressure off entirely. The appointment time is arranged to suit however you choose to travel.
Will you keep the ashes I don’t use, or do I take them home?
You take them home. Only a small amount, about a teaspoons worth, is ever used, and the remainder stays with you the whole time, in the container you brought it in. Nothing is kept back or retained at the studio.
Is the finished result obvious as an ashes tattoo, or does it just look normal?
It looks like any other tattoo. Once the ashes are properly prepared and mixed into the ink, there is nothing visibly different about it. The meaning is held within it rather than shown on the surface, which is exactly how most people want it.
What happens at the very start, before any tattooing?
Time to talk. The first part of the appointment is given to discussing the design, the person being remembered, and anything you want to ask, with no rush to begin. Nothing starts until you feel settled and ready for it to.
The ashes come with me, not ahead of me
Correct. They travel with you on the day and return home with you afterwards. Nothing is posted, stored or handled before you arrive.
Should I bring the whole urn all that way?
No need. Most people who travel a distance bring a small portion in a smaller container instead, which is perfectly fine, and either way only a teaspoon or so is used. The how much ashes for a tattoo page covers it in full.
Getting the design settled before Sussex disappears behind me
Sensible, and how nearly everyone at this distance does it. Photographs, handwriting and half formed ideas can all go back and forth by phone and email first, so the day is spent tattooing rather than deciding.
Is it painful?
No more than any tattoo of the same size in the same spot. The prepared ashes sit within the ink and change nothing about the feel of the work. There is more on the do ashes tattoos hurt page.
They died years ago and I only heard about this recently
That comes up often, and it is no obstacle. Ashes kept in an ordinary container do not deteriorate in a way that affects the preparation, so a loss from twenty years back is marked exactly as well as a recent one.
What about a dog or a cat?
The same work, the same care, whatever the animal. Pets make up a large share of what comes through the studio, and the pet ashes tattoo page explains that side of it.
Looking after it on the way back down
It is dressed before you leave and the aftercare written out for you, which matters when the day finishes with four hours of travelling. The ashes tattoo aftercare page has the detail.
If I need to talk before any of the practical side
That is welcome, and quite normal. Not every first conversation is about design or dates. The coping with grief page exists for the same reason.
Reaching Out From Eastbourne
There is no wrong way to make the first approach. Some people write a few lines about who they are remembering, others ring with a single practical question about the journey or the design. Either is welcome, and neither commits you to anything beyond the conversation; it is simply a way to find out what is possible.
Call 01270 385001, email info@bubblegumink.com, or use the contact page or the contact form at the foot of this page. Bubblegum Ink ® is a private, appointment only studio in Sandbach, Cheshire, with around 30 years behind it. In your own time, when you are ready, a little of the person you have lost can be made into something carried for the rest of your life.
About the author: Paul Cutler is a tattoo artist of some 30 years and the man behind Bubblegum Ink ®, the private Cheshire studio he founded and still works from. Cremation ashes memorials have taken up roughly the last 20 of those years, and the preparation the studio relies on is a process he worked out himself. Clients reach him from the length of the country and from abroad. The BBC has broadcast his work, press here and overseas have covered it, and it has been recognised with awards on several occasions. Read more about Paul.