1200 6th Ave, Belmont California 94002
This is a long review, so I below I posted “Short Story” followed by a more detailed “My Awesome Experience with Morningstar Tattoo Parlor”.
SHORT STORY:
Morningstar Tattoo far exceeded my expectations in every way; their facility is comfortable, clean, and professional. My Tattooist, Jordi Simmons, did an amazing job throughout the whole design and application process. You will not be disappointed with Morningstar!
MY AWESOME EXPERIENCE WITH MORNINGSTAE TATTOO PARLOR:
I never thought I would ever be a “Tattoo Guy.” However, after my daughter suddenly passed away at age 30 in 2022, I wanted to have something that keeps her spirit with me and will always be with me wherever I go and whatever I do. After about a year of introspection, I decided that a memorial tattoo for my daughter would be highly appropriate for me. After much research on local Tattoo shops, I decided to work with Morningstar Tattoo Parlor.
When I first visited Morningstar, I was amazed that this parlor was not like tattoo parlors as portrayed in the media. Morningstar occupies a spacious, clean, comfortable, and professional series of suites on the second and third floors of their building. They are by appointment only, original artwork only, and they have several policies that strike me as highly professional.
When I reached out to Morningstar, Jordi Simmons returned my call, and after a brief conversation, I felt comfortable proceeding with Jordi as my tattooist.
My whole experience with Jordi, given her professionalism, creativity, artistry, and skill was outstanding! Jordi and I initially met for about 2 hours, and she really took the time to understand why I wanted this tattoo, what my what my daughter was like in life (the good and the bad), my spiritual beliefs regarding life, sentience and death, and other topics personally relevant and meaningful to me. Jordi also clearly described what she could and could not do with tattoo designs, such as font sizes, resolution, and other things to consider with the design. I gave Jordi some initial concepts of what might work for a design concept as a starting point.
Over the next 4 months Jordi and I periodically corresponded via email about design concepts to be considered. When I arrived on the day we had scheduled for the tattoo to be applied, we hadn’t yet settled on a final design, and Jordi presented the latest design she developed for me.
I was absolutely blown away at the design she created!
The design is way beyond anything I had thought possible. The image Jordi created for me captures an amazing amount symbolism about what my daughter was like in life, my spiritual beliefs regarding life and death, and other aspects of my daughter’s short life. The images, and even the relative placement of numbers, text, and images carries deep symbolism and meaning for me. Jordi quickly incorporated some very small changes to the design based on my feedback, and then it was time to apply the tattoo.
The initial application was a 3-hour sitting at Jordi’s station, toward the end of which, my skin was getting irritated enough that Jordi advised that we should stop, because continuing the application that day could compromise the quality of the final tattoo. Because of this, we ended our session for the day and scheduled a second sitting 3 weeks later.
During the interim time between the first and second application, I researched Tattoo best practices for design and application. This helped me really understand in detail that Jordi had carefully planned of the tattoo’s overall size, orientation, and placement that otherwise I would not have noticed. Everything Jordi did was according to the best practices I researched; Jordi planned for a tattoo that will displays and ages well.
We finished the tattoo during our second sitting of about an hour and a half and I am beyond h