Who we are

BlackKoi Supply is a tattoo consumables supplier opened in 2026 by the son of a tattoo artist. It supplies professional studios from the United States. This page is the part of the story a spec sheet can't hold.

Where it starts

I grew up in a tattoo artist's household. For most children a parent's work is a place they leave for in the morning. Mine was a room I could walk into: the hum of the machine through the wall, the smell of green soap, the bench set up and broken down in the same order every time, and the way a whole afternoon could hinge on whether a box had arrived. I learned early that the work on the skin is only the last step of a longer chain, and that everyone in the studio feels it when a link in that chain fails.

The restock was a household matter long before it was a business to me. What ran out. What arrived late, or wrong, or looking the same as last time but not behaving the same. Which supplier picked up the phone and which one didn't. An artist can't be careful with a needle and careless about where the needle came from, and I watched what it cost when the supply side didn't hold up its end.

What I took from the other side of the bench

Three things. The company is built on them.

• The box has to be trusted before it is opened. A studio doesn't have the afternoon to test every cartridge. It needs to know which lot it holds, when it was sterilised, and who answers if something is wrong.
• The same code from two makers is not the same material. Tip play, the grouping, the film that lifts at the edge: the differences that never show on a listing are the ones the artist finds under the light.
• An answer within a day is worth more than a discount. A defect on a booked day is not a pricing problem. It is a person waiting in the chair.

Opening my own business

BlackKoi Supply is my own company, opened in 2026 in the United States. It is small on purpose: fifteen materials in four open systems at the start, one name on every box, and the lot number and sterilisation date recorded when a lot arrives, so a defect or a recall can be traced back to it. Cure and Pigment are listed and closed until we can carry them properly. Under MoCRA the name on an ink label is the responsible person, and we won't put ours there before we can stand behind it.

I didn't want to open with a warehouse and a promise. I wanted to open with a spec sheet per material that says what we verified and what we don't claim yet, an Engine that reads a studio's own restocks and proposes the next one without ever ordering on its own, and a mailbox that a person answers. A studio gets its burn rate as an estimate until its third restock, then its own numbers. That is the whole method: write down what is true, show it, and let the work earn the rest.

What we promise

• One name on the box, and the lot recorded when it arrives.
• Every commitment in writing. Lead time, returns, recalls and privacy are in the documents linked from the footer. The site says nothing the documents don't.
• By email, by a person. Monday to Friday, 9:00–17:00 ET. Defects and restocks in progress are answered within one business day.
• Open to any studio. Prices on every sheet, checkout open, verification optional and never a wall.
• No claim we can't document. If a sheet doesn't say it, we haven't verified it.

What we don't do yet

We don't sell ink. We don't sell numbing products. We don't run subscriptions, and we don't send email to anyone who didn't ask for it. The pictures of the materials are renders of the box as it ships; photographs follow, lot by lot.

Where this is going

Real photographs as the lots arrive. Reviews only from studios whose order we can match, published with the number behind them. The two closed systems opened when we can carry them properly. A supplier a studio can call by name, that grows one lot at a time, and that still answers within a day when it is ten times this size. Nothing on this site is promised before it exists; this page is the one place where I get to say what I hope for.

Where the detail is

What we supply and how supply works is on Company. What we test and document is on Standards. The binding documents are the Terms of supply and the policies it points to.

Contact

contact@blackkoisupply.com, Monday to Friday, 9:00–17:00 ET.

— Nick, founder