tattoos are for life not just for christmas

A tattoo is a form of body modification where a design is made by inserting ink, dyes and pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment.

Tattoos fall into three broad categories: purely decorative (with no specific meaning); symbolic (with a specific meaning pertinent to the wearer); pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item). Tattoos have historically been regarded in the West as ‘uncivilised’, and over the last 100 years the fashion has been associated mainly with sailors, working men and criminals. By the end of the 20th Century many Western stigmas of the tattoo culture had been dismissed and the practice has become more acceptable and accessible for people of all trades and levels of society.

The word tattoo, or tattow in the 18th century, is a loanwold from the Polynesian word tatau, meaning “to write”. The gives the of tattoo as “In 18th c. tattaow, tattow. From Polynesian (Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan, etc.) tatau. In Marquesan, tatu.” Before the importation of the Polynesian word, the practice of tattooing had been described in the West as painting, scarring, or staining.

This is not to be confused with the origins of the word for the military drumbeat or performance — see tattoos. In this case, the English word tattoo is derived from the Dutch word taptoe.

The first written reference to the word tattoo (or tatau) appears in the journal of Joseph Banks (24 February 1743 – 19 June 1820), the naturalist aboard explorer Captain Cook‘s ship the HMS Endeavour: “I shall now mention the way they mark themselves indelibly, each of them is so marked by their humour or disposition”. The word tattoo was brought to eur by Cook, when he returned in 1769 from his first voyage to Tahiti and new zeland In his narrative of the voyage, he refers to an operation called “tattaw”.

Tattoo enthusiasts may refer to tattoos as “ink”, “pieces”, “skin art”, “tattoo art”, “tats”, or “work”; to the creators  and to places where they work as “tattoo shops”, “tattoo studios”, or “tattoo parlors”.

Mainstream art galleries hold exhibitions of both conventional and custom tattoo designs such as Beyond Skin, at the Museum of Croydon. Copyrighted tattoo designs that are mass-produced and sent to tattoo artists are known as “flash“, a notable instance of industrial design. Flash sheets are prominently displayed in many tattoo parlors for the purpose of providing both inspiration and ready-made tattoo images to customers.

The Japanese word irezumi means “insertion of ink” and can mean tattoos using tebori, the traditional Japanese hand method, a Western-style machine, or any method of tattooing using insertion of ink. The most common word used for traditional Japanese tattoo designs is horimono. Japanese may use the word tattoo to mean non-Japanese styles of tattooing.

Anthropologist ling roth in 1900 described four methods of skin