Where available, I have included the information about the laws
regarding tattooing for that state. Note that some states leave this up
to the cities or municipalities. This information should only be used
for unofficial information purposes, and may change by each legislative
session--for accurate and up-to-date information regarding the laws of
your area, contact a professional tattoo shop or the department of
public health.

The laws regarding tattooing differ as greatly as there are states in
the U.S. While a handful serve as model states for regulations, most are
completely unregulated, with the exception of some laws on the minimum
allowable age. There is no federal legislation regarding tattooing.

To complicate things however, many states leave these regulations up to
the cities, counties and municipalities. In addition, changes or
amendments to existing laws crop up regularly.

Laws regarding tattooing are listed at the beginning of each state's
section in Part 5 of this FAQ, which is the artists list.  You can
view the database at http://1134.org/tattoodb/

If YOUR state changes its laws, please contact me.

Regulations help promote professionalism, and discourage "scratchers."
This is important when considering disease transmission (HIV and
Hepatitis-B in particular). If you think this is a frivolous issue,
consider that some states have banned tattooing altogether.

If state legislators try to introduce regulations on tattooing, make
sure they follow in the lines of the states with the best laws, which 
cover points such as:

Artist requirements: Training, knowledge of sanitation, washing of
 hands and use of barrier gloves for every new client 
Facility requirements: Clean work area, availability of running water 
Equipment requirements: Autoclave, disposable needles, covered waste 
 containers
Procedural requirements: Customers needing to be sober, use of signed
consent forms

The following are the actual requirements for the state of Hawaii. The
others with regulations follow in a similar vein:

Facilities
o Building must be clean, in good repair, have adequate lighting
o Adequate ventilation required
o Tattoo establishments many not be used for any non-tattoo related 
  activities
o Toilets must be provided for customers
o Work area must be separate from the rest of the business, or at 
  least separated upon request
Artist Hygiene
o Artists should always wash their hands before every tattoo.
o Separate sink (away from the toilet facilities) must be 
  available for artists to wash their hands
o Artists must dry their hands with single use paper towels or 
  some sort of mechanical (air) dryer
o Artists with communicable diseases may not tattoo
o Food, drink, and smoking not allowed in the work area
o Smoking prohibited
o May not tattoo in exchange for sex
Equipment
o Immersion in a germicidal solution as an alternative to 
  autoclaving allowed
o Use of defective, dull, or rusty equipment is banned
o Disposable single-use ink containers must be used, and with any 
  unused ink must be discarded after every customer
o All dyes must be approved
o Minimum number of needles and tubes must be kept on hand
o Only sterilized or disposable razors allowed
o Covered waste containers required
o Special storage cabinets for tattooing materials required
o Tattooing materials may not be stored in the restroom.
Procedures
o Facial tattoos may only be done by licensed physicians
o Injection of chemicals into the skin by tattoo artists to remove 
  tattoos is illegal
o Customers must be sober
o Signed consent forms required
o Parental consent forms required for minors
o Artists must keep records on every customer for at least 2 years
o Oral care instructions required
o Acetate stencils must be sanitized

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This ends "rec.arts.bodyart: Tattoo FAQ 8/9--Misc. info." This should be
followed by "rec.arts.bodyart: Tattoo FAQ 9/9--Bibliography."