Meet Kyle Otsuji | Co-Owner and Piercer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kyle Otsuji and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kyle, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Shaughnessy and myself have worked in the tattoo industry for years prior to opening our own business. Shaughnessy in particular noticed a gap in the tattoo market for good cosmetic tattooing. Many women would come into the tattoo shop asking if anyone did eyebrows and noone did. She took matters into her own hands, took a course and quickly became busy. Permanent make-up has always been around but never done well. When you initially think of tattooed brows you would think of those blue brows that your aunties had. Shaughnessy created realistic hair strokes that totally changed the game. Instantly she had people lining up wanting her to do their brows and word got around fast.
She was working at a friends tattoo studio and the more we chatted we decided to do our own thing focusing solely on microblading. We were the first business of its kind where all we did was cosmetic tattooing. Since then we have gone back to our roots of adding additional services such as traditional tattooing but cosmetic tattooing is still the core of our business.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are best known for our distinct approach to the tattoo and cosmetic industry. Studio Sashiko blends the cosmetic and tattoo industry seamlessly with the best of the best in each respective industry. We pride ourselves in curating a team that are specialists in their fields.

I believe we stood out from others because when we started our business 9 years ago there wasn’t anyone else that was strictly a cosmetic tattoo studio specializing in brows.
Tattoo shops would have a brow artist and same goes for hair salons but there wasn’t a space dedicated to just brows… until we came along.
There was not a lot of info on cosmetic tattooing so we kinda became the go to for anything and everything brows. Artists and customers would reach out to us for all the answers which kind of placed us in this unique position of being looked at as the “say all be all” studio.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would start with a coffee or tea at kodo cafe in the Arts District – it’s a beautiful, serene little pocket in the neighborhood. After our morning sips, we’d take a stroll over the 6th street bridge to see the views of downtown LA. For lunch, we’d go to Men Oh in Little Tokyo for the most delicious, warming bowl of authentic ramen. We’d then pop over to Tea Master of Little Tokyo right next door for a soft serve matcha ice cream as a treat. The next must-see spot would be Los Feliz Cinema, a movie theatre time capsule kept in perfect condition. To finish the day, we’d head back to the Arts District to enjoy a quiet evening at the Tea at Shiloh space. Other food and drink spots that are a must-see would be Bestia, Bavel and Tony’s Saloon.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There are many people that have been impactful to our business and its success. So its hard to name just a few. I would love to shoutout our entire team. Without them this business would not be what it is today. Everyone holds the business to the highest standard as if its their own and we love that. Everyone is just so proud to work at the studio and it’s an amazing feeling.

Website: https://studiosashiko.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studiosashiko/