After a five-year hiatus from tattooing in the Andalusia area, Aaron Hyde has opened the only licensed tattoo parlor in Covington County.

Hyde has 10 years of tattooing experience, and got into tattooing because he had been around it his entire childhood.

“It has always been my passion to own my own tattoo shop,” Hyde said. “My dad is covered in tattoos and my mom has tattoos, so I have always been around it. For lack of better words, it was cool to me. It is something that I found intriguing and something that not everybody does. I mean, I was good at art, so the passion was there, I just needed experience.”

For five years, Hyde saved money to open Ink Your Hyde Tattoo Parlor.

“I saved up all of this money just so I could open up my own shop,” Hyde said. “Because it does cost a lot of money to do that. It’s just like getting a business license, I mean I had to get a Red Cross certification for blood borne pathogens and a health department certification. It was pretty expensive.”

Hyde said he could go anywhere that he wanted in his career field, but he chose Andalusia to stay close to his son and to provide a service to the community.

“My son goes to school in Andalusia,” Hyde said. “And I have several clients that are in the area that know me as the tattoo guy. I didn’t want to go to a big city where there were already a hundred tattoo shops. I mean, I already have my clients here. I’m not the best tattoo artist in the world, but I know exactly what I’m doing and I put 100 percent into every tattoo that I do.”

Hyde said doesn’t specialize in a specific type of tattoo because he wants to provide a broad range of tattoos.

“I like to range in everything,” Hyde said. “I like to broaden my horizon, because I don’t like to stick to one thing. I like to do grey wash, color, old style, American traditional, Japanese traditional, girly stuff and small stuff. I’ll do anything. I just like everything about it. The only thing that I haven’t done is portrait style, but if somebody comes in wanting one, I will make sure that I learn it and perfect it before I try it out on the public. I say that because I stand behind all of my work and I don’t want somebody coming in and then having to go get a cover up that will cost them even more money.”

Hyde said that he wants all of his clients to be happy about his work when they walk out of his shop.

“They usually are happy when they walk out of my shop,” Hyde said. “I’ve never had a complaint. I just want them to be happy with my work and I want them to come back and tell other people to come to the shop as well.”

The community response has been overwhelming, but good, Hyde said.

“I am completely booked for about a week or week and a half,” Hyde said. “And I have a bunch of tattoos to draw up for people. Since I already have clients here, they have just been waiting for me to open up a shop. I had this one client who I did a half sleeve for eight years ago, and he hasn’t had another guy even touch it. That means a lot to me, because it was a custom piece that I did for him and we sat down and talked about what he wanted and everything.”

Hyde is currently training an employee to do piercings as well. “I am the only one that does tattoos,” Hyde said. “But I do offer piercings as well, and I’m training somebody right now to specifically do piercings only.”

The business is open from noon until 8 p.m., 

Tuesday through Thursday, and noon until midnight on Friday and Saturday.

For more information, or to schedule an appointment, call 334-208-1374.