After working as a nurse during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amber Lyall decided it was time for a career change when she, like many seasoned nurses, became burnt out.
Lyall, who graduated from Fleming College’s nursing program in 2021, said she and her coworkers were very understaffed, ultimately resulting in working conditions she felt were unsafe.
“I was working full-time at one facility for about a year. The general conditions of health care right now are just a hot mess. I don’t know really know how else to describe it. There are so many staffing problems entirely due to nurses just being overworked. The patient to staff ratios are very unsafe,” Lyall said.
“In the year that I worked in the field, I saw so many concerning things and I got burnt out very quickly. I ended up on a mental health leave and that’s kind of what triggered a desire for a change in career.”
While Lyall has always been artistic, she said becoming a tattoo artist was never something she envisioned for herself.
“It wasn’t until last December, when I was getting another tattoo myself. At that point I had been working as a nurse for about six months or so. I didn’t know I was going to leave nursing at the time, but in my head I think I was already trying to find another career path. So, while I was there getting a tattoo, I had this lightbulb moment where I thought, why couldn’t I do this?” she said.
After realizing what she wanted to do next, Lyall said she pitched the idea to her friend Sarah who had similarly quit her full-time nursing job.
“Sarah made up our name and logo and she was like, ‘Haha, how funny would it be if we did this,” Lyall said. “But that’s when our business Tats and Tox was established. So ‘tats’ is obviously me and then ‘tox’ is Sarah. She does Botox and filler with cosmetic injections.”
In hopes of acquiring further clientele, Lyall started creating and posting videos on TikTok of her work.
“My TikTok account initially started with me just posting my artwork, but once I started learning to tattoo, I was cataloging that stuff on TikTok too,” she said.
With several of Lyall’s videos receiving tens of thousands of views, she said the response has been overwhelming.
“Everybody has been so sweet. Like the compliments that I get and the crazy amount of business that TikTok brings in it’s … it’s wild,” she said.
Lyall said business owners who aren’t taking advantage of social media platforms like TikTok are missing out.
“If you aren’t using social media, especially now with TikTok being kind of the newest, biggest social media phenomenon, you’re missing out on a huge demographic,” she said.
“TikTok has a very steep learning curve and you have to understand how the trends of TikTok work and keep on top of them, and then you also have to learn the component of how to film and edit and all that stuff, but it’s so worth it when you see a video get like a hundred thousand views and if you can manage to do the right steps that get you into your target demographic.”
To those individuals currently unhappy in their field of work and considering switching paths, Lyall said, “Just take that leap of faith.”
“It took me a while to actually make the decision to change career paths, but I wish I had done it sooner because it has made such a big difference in my life,” she said
Tats and Tox Studio is located in Lindsay. Their Instagram handle is @tatsandtoxstudio. Lyall can be found on Instagram and TikTok via @tatsbyrosie.
