In Utah and most states, there is no such thing as a license for tattooing. Anyone can buy a machine on Amazon and start their own studio. Unfortunately, that means that the industry is over saturated with “scratchers”. Scratchers (untrained people posing as professionals) have not undergone formal or most of the time any apprenticeship at all, which means they are not properly educated in technique, sterile process and setup, cross contamination, infectious disease prevention, and tattoo aftercare. The health department regulations actually vary from county to county here in Utah. While there have been attempts to create uniform state-wide regulations, they haven’t yet been fully implemented.
