Cleveland-based company Save My Ink Forever offers people the opportunity to have their tattoos preserved as artworks after they pass away.

Third-generation mortician Michael Sherwood and his son Kyle came up with the idea for Save My Ink Forever a few years back, while having a few drinks with some friends. One of them said that he would like his ink preserved somehow and asked the Sherwoods how he should go about doing that. They laughed at the question at first, but their buddy pushed the issue and it got the two morticians thinking. Tattoos mean a lot to the people who have them inked on their bodies, as well as to their families, so it made sense that some of them would like them preserved. After devising a technique for removing and preserving tattoos, the Sherwoods founded Save My Ink Forever and started taking orders.

Photo: Save My Ink Forever

“We are trying to do this in the most dignified manner possible. To people, some of these things really are pieces of art,” Kyle Sherwood said. “It gives that family another option and instead of having just the remains or the burial, we can still do that, they have actually a piece of their loved one. They are pieces of art, and it is just amazing the tattoos we get.”

Save My Ink Forever claim to be the only company in the world with the proper tattoo preservation process. They will not reveal details about it, but they do state that it is a complex process that takes roughly three or four months. Once it’s done, clients are left with a parchment-like artwork that requires no maintenance at all.

In order to satisfy orders from all over the United States, Save My Ink Forever works with funeral homes from around the country, sending them special kits and video tutorials on how to remove the tattoos. The strips of skin are then shipped to Cleveland and put through a top-secret preservation process.

“We are trying to do this in the most dignified manner possible. To people, some of these things really are pieces of art,” Kyle said, adding that Save My Ink Forever draws a line at preserving face and genital tattoos.

The company has received requests for the preserved tattoos to be turned into book covers or lampshades, but the Sherwoods claim that they are trying to fulfill families’ last wishes, not create some sort of freakshow.

Back in 2018, Save My Ink Forever preserved about 100 tattoos a year, but they have been getting a lot of exposure online since then, so that number may have gone up considerably.