We bet you know plenty of people with tattoos. Some settle for a discreet tattoo on their arm or back. Others end up getting entire sleeves of tattoos, transforming their arms into living canvases for artistic expression.
However, we’re confident that you’ve never met anyone quite like Melissa Sloan. This mom has over 800 tattoos, including extensive ink covering her face that makes her nearly unrecognizable. Now, she’s confirmed what most people who have heard about her already expected: that having this many tattoos is keeping her from getting a job.
Just how did Sloan end up with all these tattoos? Which ink is having the biggest effect on her job prospects, and what tattoo plans does her future hold? Keep reading to discover the answer!
When did she first start getting tattoos?
Obviously, one doesn’t simply end up with 800 tattoos overnight. In Melissa Sloan’s case, the journey to her inky destination began with a single step. And she took that step when she was only 20 years old and got her first tattoo.
It’s fairly common for those in their twenties to explore getting tattoos as a way of both experimenting with and taking ownership of their bodies. However, most who get a spur-of-the-moment bit of ink when they are only 20 years old don’t end up covering their entire face in ink. Accordingly, we couldn’t help but wonder how Melissa Sloan ended up with all these tattoos in the first place.
How do you end up with 800 tattoos in the first place?
You might not be that sympathetic to hear that someone who covered almost their entire body in tattoos is having trouble finding work. After all, most people take their job prospects into consideration before getting any kind of highly visible tattoos. However, the New York Post reported what Melissa Sloan had to say in a previous interview, and it may change your mind about her situation.
In the interview, she described herself as “addicted” to getting new tattoos. That means she is not simply grabbing new ink whenever she feels like it; instead, she is struggling with the same intense type of addiction that keeps, say, alcoholics reaching for another drink even when they know they should stop. Because of this, she gets a whopping three new tattoos each week, and she has said before this helps her cope with former abuse at the hands of a sibling.
New ink over old ink
When you hear that someone has 800 tattoos on their body, you might start having very practical questions. For example, just how small are these tattoos if it took that many of them to cover her body? However, the answer is surprisingly straightforward: of the 800 tattoos covering Melissa Sloan’s body, many of them are effectively new tattoos being used to cover old tattoos.
For most tattoo lovers, a cover-up technique is used to transform an old, unwanted tattoo into something better. Sloan has a different approach, though, as she enjoys getting several different layers of tattoos on her face. We have to admit that the final result is quite striking, but it has had some unintended consequences when it comes to her ability to find work.
The tattoos keep her from finding work
According to the New York Post, Melissa Sloan has been very blunt in a previous interview about the effects the hundreds of tattoos have had on her job prospects. “I can’t get a job,” she said “I applied for a job cleaning toilets where I live, and they won’t have me because of my tattoos.”
Sloan still remains hopeful about landing a job, and she was candid in her interview “If someone offered me a job tomorrow, I would go and work – I would take that offer.” Unfortunately, she also admitted in that same interview that she only had one job previously and “it didn’t last long,” so her relative lack of experience may be another reason why it’s difficult for her to find a job.
What are the main tattoos keeping her out of work?
As we noted at the beginning of this article, plenty of people that you see every day have discreet tattoos. In fact, it’s a safe bet that you work alongside many coworkers with ink hidden under their shirt sleeves. Why, then, is Melissa Sloan having so much difficulty getting work with her tattoos? Unsurprisingly, it mostly comes down to her facial tattoos.
As the New York Posts reports, Sloan believes that people make up their minds about her as soon as they see her extensive facial tattoos. And unlike sleeves of tattoos that can be hidden when applying for a job, Sloan has no realistic way of hiding her ink.
Despite acknowledging how much she wants a job and how much the tattoos have kept her out of work, Sloan has no intention of stopping…ever. “If I make it to 70 I’ll still be getting them,” she dsif. “Every bit of skin will be covered even if I’m turning blue, my face is already turning blue — I look like a Smurf.” Here’s hoping, then, that she finds work soon and doesn’t run afoul of Gargamel, the natural nemesis to Smurfs everywhere.