We’ve had quite a few people contact us over the years wanting advice or support about what to do with a tattoo they either regret or just didn’t turn out how they originally wanted.
When people think of tattoo regret they usually think of someone who got an ex partners name or a drunken mistake. But more often than not the person wants the tattoo but it just didn’t look how they’d have hoped. This could be down to the tattoo artist not understanding their ideas, the person not thinking the idea through enough, the positioning or sizing being wrong, the quality being poor or maybe they were hoping to look like someone they’ve seen and a tattoo will struggle to do that for them. A new tattoo can be quite a shock to someone who hasn’t had one before, especially if you go for a large or obvious piece and that shock maybe hard to shake off, it can change how people perceive you and that maybe something you hadn’t thought about.
Some examples of people we have helped:
Large “believe” with Enso Ring Forearm Tattoo
This person liked the tattoo design itself but just wasn’t fully happy with how it looked on her forearm. And the enso she felt was far too dark and large.
The advise we gave was that there’s nothing wrong with the tattoo itself and it’s best to live with it for a few more months and at least see how you feel about it in the summer months when it’s on show. If you really decide it isn’t right for you then laser removal or a cover up is definitely an option – the tattoo is greyscale so should remove fine – it just could take around a year or so to fully remove. We suggested around 8 treatments might be needed to fully remove the tattoo, but that it will greatly fade from just 2 – 3 sessions and then if faded enough she could look at a cover up on just the enso part she wasn’t happy with. A rose for instance behind the text would work – roses are great for cover ups as they’re so layered.
Turtle shoulder tattoo (Top image)
This person just wasn’t happy with how the final design looked on his shoulder, the size and positioning just felt off. He contacted us to see if we had any ideas how to improve the tattoo as he still loved the concept.
Our idea was to make the design into more of an ocean scene with water, coral and fish swimming below. This helped to extend the piece down his arm and the customer was super happy with the results. We sent 2 temporary tattoos of the design out to him to test in person before getting permanently tattooed.
Large Forearm Solid Black Tattoo
This was a truly difficult and quite upsetting one as the customers wife actually got in touch to say how her husband was struggling with depression due to hating his tattoo so much. It started out as something else that he felt was too dark to remove so he just got solid black ink tattooed over the top and now he can’t stand it and gets upset every time he sees it, which being on the forearm is obviously very often.
The only advice we could really give at this stage was to reassure him that people don’t care as much as he might think, he should be confident and own it as there’s definitely ways to make it work.
Some ideas might be to get additional tattoo work done around the tattoo or on his other arm to help distract his attention to it (but take his time with getting anything new done).
We also suggested trying laser removal, it certainly isn’t too late and it can at least knock the darkness back a lot and a design can then go over the top and maybe flow into a full half sleeve. He should take his time with it, a few years in the grand scheme isn’t much and if he’s really not comfortable with it then he can wear long sleeves for the time being until it’s sorted. Or even an arm sleeve for the time being with a T shirt in the hotter months. Even try makeup potentially to cover up the arm could be an idea.
One thing that can even help also, is focusing on developing himself and making him define the tattoo not the other way around – get to the gym, strengthen your mind and body and soon something like this won’t even bother you, people judge on character not aesthetics, your tattoo looks as good as your confidence in it.
