NORTHFIELD, Ohio — Your tattoos can now live on even after you have passed away. This is thanks to one northeast Ohio company that specializes in preserving tattoos. 

Kyle Sherwood and his father, Michael Sherwood, opened Save My Ink Forever to the public in 2016. 

“These tattoos are from loved ones who have passed away and they're getting ready to be sent back to their family,” Kyle Sherwood said.

Save My Ink Forever extracts peoples' tattoos after they’ve passed away and turns them into framed artwork. The company said it is the only company in the world to do this.

“Each tattoo has its own individual story, and one of the things that I like and that the family's always happy to share is kind of the story behind the tattoos," he said.

When the Sherwoods receive a request to preserve a tattoo, they send a package of materials to the deceased’s funeral home so the tattoo can be properly removed. 

"But then what we do is, we have an instructional video that we would forward to the funeral home that shows how to properly excise the tattoo, so we work with them closely,” he said. “We send a kit to them, where the tattoo goes into a dry preservative powder that basically keeps the tattoo safe during the transportation time period where it gets back to us, and then our preservation process begins.” 

The company is able to operate in every state in the U.S. besides Washington due to legal reasons. 

“We have a general counsel that specializes in funeral law, and he has done his research and basically should anything ever come up, he is very confident in what he does," he said.

Sometimes death comes unexpectedly, but the copmpany is able to handle both planned and unplanned tattoo preservations. 

“It can be, what we call, an at-need basis where if someone passes away, the family or the funeral home reaches out to us, and we begin that process of... paperwork and so forth,” he said. “Or they have the option of, let's say, you know, we hear cases all of the time of, 'I want this done, but I don’t want my family to have to worry about expenses,' and so, for that reason, we actually have tattoo life-insurance policies.” 

The Sherwood family has been in the death-care industry for decades. 

Micheal Sherwood said he is seeing more and more people come in with tattoos than ever before, making now the perfect time for a business like this one. 

“And I look at that and it was like, I am kind of proud that Kyle and I and some other fine people really started something like this to give people an opportunity to save that,” he said. “Ten years ago, obviously, it was never thought of.” 

The cost to have a tattoo preserved starts at around $1,700 for a five-by-five-inch tattoo. 

“But once they get that tattoo back, again, they're so thankful and so happy that we were able to do that for them,” Kyle Sherwood said. “That that is what keeps us going.”

The preserved tattoos should last for generations, the company said. 

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct price of a tattoo preservation. (Aug. 11, 2023.)