About Absolute

One shop, and it was a decision

Absolute has been tattooing in the Menomonee Falls location for a long time. There were once shops in Milwaukee, Waukesha and Sheboygan too.

When tattooing was legalised in Milwaukee, the market filled up almost overnight. Shops opened across the street and around the corner from one another. We closed the other locations and kept this one. Menomonee Falls is where Absolute started and where it has always been.

The upside of a single location is that the same people are here year after year. Eddie has tattooed at this shop and nowhere else since 1997. Scott has been tattooing since 1984. You are not going to walk in and find that everyone you talked to last time has moved on.

Sterile procedure is not a selling point

It is the baseline, and we treat it that way. Absolute is approved and supported by the Wisconsin State Health Department, and we practise and encourage the highest levels of sterile method.

You should never have to take a shop's word for this. Ask any shop, anywhere, how they sterilise, what is single use, and how their equipment is monitored. A professional will answer plainly and will not be irritated by the question. If a shop makes you feel awkward for asking, that is your answer.

Custom work costs the same as anything else

We encourage custom, one of a kind tattoos at no additional cost. That is unusual and it is deliberate. A design drawn for your body, at your size, in your placement will sit better and age better than a flat design stretched to fit, and if the price is the same either way there is no reason to steer anyone toward the worse outcome.

For anyone who would rather pick something out, we keep one of the largest selections of flash in the Midwest. We promise there is something in there for everyone.

How to choose a tattoo shop, including if it is not this one

Plenty of people are ignorant of how much quality varies in a tattoo, which is how a poor shop gets recommended by someone who does not know better. For the same money you can have a genuinely beautiful tattoo instead of one that is merely acceptable. So it is worth a little effort.

• Shop around. Visit more than one place before you book anything.
• Look at personal albums. Ask individual artists for photographs of their own work, not the shop's collective highlights.
• Look for consistency. One great piece proves very little. Twenty clean ones prove a lot.
• Look at healed work. Fresh tattoos all photograph well. Healed photographs tell you the truth.
• Ask about sterilisation. Every professional expects the question.

There is a lot of talk in this industry about who is better than whom. We would rather let the work speak. There are other shops in Wisconsin with genuinely talented people in them, and most of us get on fine. If anyone spends your consultation running down their competitors instead of showing you their portfolio, take that for what it is and make your own decision.

The atmosphere is part of the job

We are laid back and we keep it professional at the same time, and we do not think those two things are in tension. Most people are nervous before a tattoo. Having someone loosen you up and keep you comfortable through the whole process has become what Absolute is known for.

The crew here has a sense of humour that some people find outrageous. Most of our clients tell us the tattoo turned out to be a genuinely good day rather than a thing to get through. It is something you have to see for yourself.