Note that here when we use the term “tattoo furniture”, we’re talking the furniture used in tattoo shops and parlors, not furniture with a style inspired by tattoo art, which is actually awesome in and of itself but perhaps a topic for another article.

We can divide up all the types of tattoo furniture into a few broad categories. Let’s now do this and analyze the different types of tattoo furniture, starting from what we probably could say is the most important furniture to have on down to items you still need but aren’t as critical to your operation.

Client Tattoo Chairs – The customer needs a place to lie or sit when receiving a tattoo, and that place is the client side tattoo chair. Tattoo chairs range in price from a couple hundred dollars on up into the thousands. Chairs rotate, move up and down, (i.e. hydraulic tattoo chairs) and adjust as necessary to get the proper height and comfort thing going between the client and the artist.

Artist Tattoo Chair/Stool – The second part of the set up between the customer and the tattoo artist is the small stool used by the tattoo artist. These usually have no back, swivel, and lengthen to go up or down. These types of tattoo chairs cost under $100.

Display Case & Display Furniture – How do you plan to show your customers your flash art collection? Many shops put up glass displays and place the art behind the glass on the walls. More in depth options include giant book-like rafters that you flip through, each oversized page connected to the wall containing a dozen or more pieces of art. On a similar note, if you group body piercing services into your shop, you’ll need glass counter top display cases to showcase and protect the body jewelry for sale. Display cases generally end up costing a shop $1,000′s of dollars to buy, install, and maintain. As such, this makes for one of the most expensive tattoo furniture items needed in a shop.

Couches and Seats – It’s common to set up a tattoo shop so that potential customers can walk in, grab a book of tattoo flash art, and take a seat on a big comfy couch and start perusing possible designs. Most every shop these days has a couple couches for customers to relax in. (Not to mention, you’ll find employees and their friends using these couches probably more than anyone else. Obviously prices for couches vary considerably. However, there’s little reason to spend more than a couple hundred dollars per couch in my opinion. A place like Ikea sells cool artsy couches perfect for tattoo shops that fit within this price range, making them a pretty cheap tattoo furniture deal! (Also note though that there are specialty niche businesses that cater to the tattoo industry, which do make couches, chairs, and other furniture for customers to sit on that are specifically made for tattoo shops.)

Misc. Furniture Items - This category can be expanded to include quite a few tattoo shop furniture items you might see or want to use. This includes artisan items such as heat lamps to functional furniture items such as a front desk to coffee tables for flash art books to rest on.

If you’re looking into buying a tattoo chair for your shop or at home set up, you have probably come across the various types of tattoo chairs out their on the market. At first it almost sounds strange, using as a tattoo chair something that’s also sold as a chair for… another trade?

For example, it’s common to find different types of chairs for sale advertised all at once as a being a:

• tattoo chair
• barber chair
• massage therapist chair
• hair styling chair
• manicure chair
• TV watching chair (OK, just kidding on this one!)

Is there anything wrong – or rather, is there anything unprofessional about using a tattoo chair that could also double as a place to cut the old man’s hair or give Mom a perm?

In a single word: no.

In two words: absolutely not!

Far from being a cheap item, the all purpose chair is actually often of superior quality over the other types of chairs marketed and sold for the individual trades above, such as a chair that is strictly a massage chair, for example.

Why is this the case? Because in order for the chair furniture to be truly effective at being a barber chair, tattoo chair, or whatever the case may be, it needs to be versatile and it needs to be of high quality. This usually means it’s going to be adjustable and hydraulic, allowing for the craftsman, be they a tattoo artist or hair styling, to adjust the chair according to the needs of the situation, job, and client.

Additionally, another perk of the all purpose tattoo chair is the ability to liquidate furniture to another business if the need arose, either because you’re replacing your current equipment (upgrading the tattoo shop, basically) or because it’s possible one day the shop itself or you as a tattooist will no longer need the chair. Having all purpose chairs means it’ll be much easier to sell a used chair to another business since they don’t have to strictly be a tattoo shop but instead could qualify under a number of other trades that need a reliable, hydraulic chair.

On this note, take a look at the following article about used tattooing equipment: Where to Buy a Used Tattoo Chair.