It is the most reasonable-sounding piece of preparation there is: the area needs to be bare, so you make it bare. Then you arrive and your artist shaves it again.
The short answer is to ask. Studios differ, and the answer belongs to the person holding the machine. But there is a consistent reason most artists prefer to do it themselves, and there is clinical evidence behind it: a Cochrane review of preoperative hair removal found that shaving with a razor before a procedure was associated with more infections than removing no hair at all, and with considerably more skin injury than other methods. That research is about surgery, not tattooing, and the two settings are not equivalent — but it is why clinical practice moved away from razors.
Timing
A shave leaves the surface of the skin briefly irritated, and razors leave micro-nicks you cannot see. Shaving the night before or the morning of means your artist begins work on skin that is recovering from something else. When they shave it themselves, with a fresh single-use blade, minutes before the stencil goes on, there is no gap.
The stencil
Stencil transfer wants a clean, dry, hair-free surface. Stubble, lotion residue and shaving product all sit between the design and the skin.
Blades
Studios use single-use blades as a matter of routine. Your bathroom razor is not that.
What to ask, in one message
“Do you want me to shave the area beforehand, or will you do it? And is there anything you’d like me to avoid putting on my skin before I come in?”
That second question is the one nobody asks, and it is the more useful of the two.
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We are not telling you your artist is wrong if they ask you to shave. Plenty do, particularly for large areas or for back and leg work where reaching the area in the chair is awkward. Follow their instruction. The point is that this is a question with a real answer, and asking it takes ten seconds.
Where preparation genuinely does help is in the days before: consistent conditioning so the skin your artist works on is not tight and dry. That is covered in how to prepare your skin before a tattoo.
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