Miss Tattoo Netherlands 2021: ‘I was sent away because I had yellow-blue arms’ | WOMAN magazine
A past year…
“I was given the title Miss Tattoo Netherlands. You can participate with a small tattoo, but also if you are completely full, like me. It was so special to hear that I had become the first. I found it overwhelming.”
For seven years…
“I live in the Netherlands. I am from Poland and came here to work. I’m training now, but I used to be a cleaner. There I had an experience on my appearance. The owner of a company where I worked saw my tattoos and immediately called my boss to say that this was not the intention. Was I sent away because I had ‘yellow-blue’ arms!”
On my tattoos…
“I get both positive and negative responses. I’ve seen a lot on the street. I understand that not everyone likes tattoos. That’s a matter of taste. But many people also immediately judge you, for example that you are vulgar. I am a very sweet woman, who likes to take care of people. Until January I did an internship in a retirement home with people with dementia. She didn’t mind. I was asked twenty times a day if I could wash those tattoos off too, haha!”
My love for ink…
“Comes from my younger brother. He has been designing and making tattoos since his childhood. When I was 15, he put my first copy: a clown with a red nose. That is why it remains special to me. But otherwise they have no meaning, the point is that I like them. In Poland I have a permanent tattoo artist; I tell him my ideas and he makes something beautiful out of it. They are all unique.”
It is much cheaper….
„To get a tattoo in Poland than in the Netherlands. There you pay about 350 euros per day, here sometimes 150 euros per hour. If I’m in my regular tattoo parlor, I’ll be there for a day. Last time even three days! But then my whole thing was over. I want to have my other leg completely tattooed with mandalas, that’s my style at the moment.”
My daughter…
“It’s only 4, so it’s not playing yet. But if she also wants something on her body in the future, I have no problem with that. She’ll have to wait until she’s 18.”
Only on my face…
“I will never have anything put down. I have a pretty face, I’d like to keep it that way. But I want the rest of my body to be completely full. I’ll be glad I don’t have to suffer anymore, haha. I once camouflaged my tattoos with makeup. Funny to see myself like that, but I’m not. Tattoos are just part of me.”
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