Union Tattoo — Local services in North Island

Been tattoo twice here by different visiting artists (one, a heavily tattooed women with a split tongue, black hair and the other a bald man a few years ago now) I remembered what a disappointing experience it was after receiving a promotional email from union tattoo recently. Both tattooists were equally poor in service, communication and creating a calm and comfortable environment. Quality wise, also extremely poor and both tattoos have not aged well. I would not consider these individuals as artists, hands far too heavy (causing tattoo bleeding and heavy, ugly lines) and lack passion for their craft. They were not flexible or able to materialise the tattoo I had envisioned regarding wanting a fine line tattoo and when I asked why, the woman was dismissive and had more of an excuse than a rational as to why they could not use a finer tattoo needle. I will now begin the process of tattoo removal of these tattoos from this shop. Overall, major improvement with service and communication skills to thier paying clients is desperately in need. Looking less grumpy and a welcoming first impression is...

Had a wonderful experience with Jade for my first tattoo- it was a tiny beach wave tattoo but she was so sweet and accommodating and sketched out different placements and thickness without any hesitation. However, my recent experience with Joe was very disappointing. He asked me to make up my mind quickly on where I want the tattoo placement and when I asked for it to be placed a bit to the right- he responded saying "he's a human, not a computer". It was a simple butterfly tattoo which only took 5-10 min and the only thing I wanted to be sure of was the placement. However, due to the rude and unwelcome demeanour , I was too intimidated to even ask again and went ahead with the first placement he made which has now left me with a tattoo which i'm not 100% satisfied with. Although it's a small simple tattoo and may not matter to the artist much, it matters to a person getting the tattoo and it is their job to be considerate about questions regarding placement and...

Union is way over hyped. It is meh. The staff are nice enough but not really communicative (edited to add clarity due to owners response: they were not communicative in terms of tattoo placement/discussing design thoughts, this was a matching tattoo for me and my new husband and yet there was zero consultation regarding having the design styles/placement/sizing to match between us. My husband has many tattoos, and he was very disappointed with the lack of creative consultation). For the prices they charge, I'd suggest going to Cuba Tattoo instead, which we went to later the same day. The staff at Cuba tattoo had a much better conversation with me during the consultation process despite that just being a walk-in flash tattoo, unlike Union. I'm even more disappointed with Union considering their response to criticism was to become immediately defensive rather than taking a moment to communicate and figure out where they went wrong and how to improve. Truly...