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Memorial and Cremation Tattoos
Art is a way of expressing emotion when words fail us, and words often fail us when we are grieving. Some people hang art on a wall where visitors can view it, while others keep it in a private, more personal space. And for some, the most treasured place for art that expresses their emotions is on their body in the form of tattoos.
There are a few ways to honor a loved one with body art, and we'll cover two of them here: memorial tattoos and cremation tattoos.
What Are Memorial Tattoos?
Memorial tattoos are body art designed to pay tribute to the memory of someone dear to you. The design could be as simple as their name or as intricate as a Fibonacci spiral. It could be their favorite quotation, a symbol of their favorite pastime, or anything else you can imagine. As long as it fits their memory and is inked in their honor, it's a memorial tattoo. Below are images we created using Canva's '"text to image" feature with the prompt "combine a Celtic cross with a dragonfly to create a unique tattoo design." Truly, the possibilities are endless.
How Do You Choose a Cremation Tattoo?
Because the decision to get a memorial tattoo is a very personal one, the best person to answer this question is someone has one. We spoke to Carolyn, who recently lost her mother, about the experience she shared with some members of her family in deciding what to get and why. Here's our conversation:
Perfect Memorials: What made you and your family members decided to get memorial tattoos in honor of your mother?
Carolyn: I have a family where tattoos are not a weird thing. My dad has had a tattoo for my entire life. He was in the military, and I'm not actually sure when he got that tattoo, but it was sometime – I'm probably guessing either before or right after he got back from Vietnam. So, it was just a normal thing in the family. And my mom had talked for years about getting a tattoo as well, and she eventually did get one.
I knew pretty soon after she passed away that I was going to get a tattoo for her because that's important to me. I am a person with tattoos, and I like it when they mean things to me. So, I may have said something in a conversation with my family. There was about a week between her passing and her funeral with family coming into town, when every night, it would be both of my sisters, their husbands, my brother, and his wife. As well as all of the nieces and nephews, who aside from my brother's kids, all the other nieces and nephews are in their 20s, and several of them are married or in long-term relationships.
I think it just came up in conversation one night when we were all sitting around with a glass of wine and talking about things, and I brought it up. For a while we did not know what we wanted. So, were we all going to get exactly the same tattoo in honor of her, or what was it going to be? We pretty quickly came to birds as the subject of the tattoos, and the question was then, where were we going to go from there?
My mom kept a small can in the downstairs of my parents' house filled with sunflower seeds for the birds. I think that usually she would feed them kind of late morning, and the Cardinals would just sit on the back porch and wait for her. And she'd be like, "Oh, the birds are fussing at me. They're waiting for their seed," and she would throw sunflower seeds out on the back porch, and there would be probably five to ten cardinals all there for the seed she had. She always put out suet cakes for the birds, and she had a thistle feeder as well in her backyard. And that was just her thing. She had to feed her birds. And so, it was a theme that we all associated with her, and very quickly we decided that we wanted to do birds.
Perfect Memorials: And each of you got a slightly different bird?
Carolyn: Yes, we did.
Perfect Memorials: How did that work? Did you each just go to a tattoo artist and say, "I want to a bird," or did you compare notes in advance?
Carolyn: We did, and we didn't. My nephew was actually the first one to get his tattoo on his back, and that's the bluebird. He basically just posted on social media and said, "I got my tattoo to commemorate Grammy," which was sweet. So, it was like, "Oh, okay then. All right. We're doing it."
My sisters Colleen and Cathy, who are older than me, had gone to Texas to visit the care facility we were planning to move my dad to, and while they were in Texas, Colleen (who lives there) knew of a local tattoo shop that did a special once a week. I think it was on Mondays, and it was black and white only and had to be within a certain size. They went in together, and they got them together, and so they're similar but different tattoos on their wrists for her.
Mine took a lot longer, and I spent a lot of time. Again, I have more tattoos than anyone in the immediate family. So, I spent a lot of time researching what I wanted and had a lot of conflicting ideas, until I found an example that someone had posted. It was a very similar tattoo to the one I got, which is the branch with the heart and two birds on it. And when I found that one, I was like, "This, this is what I want." Maybe not that exact tattoo because the one I got is slightly different, but that is kind of the look and the feel that I want. I always go to the same tattoo artist, and she gets booked up months ahead of time, so I knew I was going to have to wait to get it.
Perfect Memorials: It is worth the wait when you know that they're going to do a good job. So, what advice would you give somebody who's considering a memorial tattoo?
Carolyn: My advice would be to take your time and think about it because realistically, there's really no hurry. The four of us who have gotten them have gotten them in less than six months from her passing, but there are a number of other family members who have said that they would like to do it but aren't quite ready to do it, yet.
I think that finding a symbol that reminds you of that person in a really meaningful way is important. And I think the ultimate question about any tattoo is that it's permanently on your body, and if you're going to do it, be sure about what you want. I very much love the one that I have. And I really liked the ones both my sisters got and the one that my nephew got, but they are distinct and they are different and they are unique to each of us, and I think that is a key part as well. Finding something that is unique for you and makes you think fondly of the person who is passed on.
Thanks to Carolyn for sharing her family's story and photographs of their tattoos with us. They are beautiful tributes to a special person.
What Are Cremation Tattoos?
Cremation tattoos are memorial tattoos with ashes in the ink. Growing in popularity, the trend is to take a small amount – about a tablespoon – of cremains that are as finely powdered as possible and mix them with tattoo ink. It's a specialized process and should only be done by a reputable tattoo artist who's been trained in the proper technique.
More than just artwork, cremation tattoos are a way to make a connection to your loved one a part of you in the most literal sense, and as a method of processing grief, they can be considered ritual tattoos – a form of body art that's been practiced for centuries.
Are Cremation Tattoos Safe?
When done correctly, putting ashes in tattoo ink has little risk. The process of cremation heats the remains to over 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, killing any residual bacteria. Then, what's left is pulverized and baked again. So, there is no inherent risk of infection from the ashes themselves. However, they should be combined with the ink in a sterile process to protect against contamination before being used for the tattoo. This is why finding a tattoo artist experienced with cremation tattoos is important.
One note of warning, though: if you have sensitive skin, you should talk to a dermatologist first. Some people have complained that while the tattoos heal, their skin was more irritated and itchier than with a normal tattoo. We should also mention that to our knowledge (and we checked!) there haven't been any clinical studies about the safety of this practice.
Whether you choose a tattoo with ashes or without, if you're not artistically inclined enough to draw your own, there are an infinite number of memorial tattoo designs available on the web, or you can use new creative tools that use AI to generate the design; we did this using Canva. If you’re looking for inspiration for symbols to use, we have hundreds of artistic designs on our urns and memorial jewelry that would translate nicely.
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