How To Cover Up Your Old Ink

Tattoos are amazing expressions of who a person is, what their values are and what their most cherished relationships or things are. But sometimes, people get their choice of tattoo wrong and suffer regrets. So what do you do when you have a tattoo that doesn’t jibe with who you are, or that just looks awful on second thoughts, or now has really bad associations? You get it removed, right? Removing a tattoo will likely cost you more than 10 times what you paid to get the tattoo done in the first place. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates the cost of laser tattoo removal at $423. A better strategy, at least for your pocket, is to cover up your old tattoo with a new design. After all, just because you hate your old tattoo, doesn’t mean you don’t want one or can’t get a new one, right? Here are my favourite ideas to do just that.

The Kiss from a Rose

Who doesn’t love roses? They are big, beautiful and bright red -although there are many other colors of roses-. Best of all, because of a rose’s shape, it’s possible to have a rose design on top of an old tattoo and have it cover the entire area without arousing any suspicion there was another tattoo there before.

Rose Geometry Dream

Let’s say you had an old geometric design tattoo and you want to change it. What do you do? Well, you could turn it into a rose with a geometric design holding up the rose. This would turn an old geometric design into a prettier design that brings together something from nature and something from the abstract world.

Tribal Band to Murder of Crows 

So you thought it would be cool to get a tattoo on your arm but now every time you swing your arms you see a monstrosity. Don’t worry, you can turn that eyesore into a tribal armband. Now that is pretty cool and will do a great job at covering your old tattoo. You could add flowers, branches and birds and other things to add artistry to the tattoo. This will turn the tattoo into a more narrative and intriguing work than it perhaps was before.

Tongue in Cheek Asterisk

Now this is brave and it’s funny. Rather than trying to cover up that old tattoo, why not leave it exactly as it is, but add an asterisk just below with a cheeky explanation, like, “I was 17 at the time”. This makes the tattoo funnier and even cooler than it was, and will likely make a great ice breaker for conversations.

From Tribal to Cubist Futurism

Let’s say you took the tribal armband route and you just want to change things up. Maybe the tribal armband idea didn’t turn out the way you wanted? Well, you could give your tattoo studio a challenge and ask them to turn the tribal armband into a tattoo that makes it appear as if we are looking inside a robot’s arm, with all the cubical pieces arrayed.