Art & Design,Tattoo ArtNOV 13, 2025

“I’m Crying”: Woman's Tattoo Regrets Prove You Should Really Think Before You Ink

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Getting inked is quite a commitment. It’s not like you can just take an eraser and remove the ‘art’ if or when you don’t like it. Tattoo regret has been trending this year, as more and more people admit to making a bad decision, or two…

It turns out even the experts themselves aren’t immune. Like one tattoo artist who says she got tattoos at a young age and is now wishing she’d thought it through properly.

Sydney Mulvaney went viral after sharing a TikTok video revealing the tattoos she regrets the most. To say they are a bit weird is somewhat of an understatement. Among them, Miley Cyrus depicted as a zombie...

Tattoos are a lot less taboo than they once were, yet tattoo regret is on the rise

Image credits: EyeEm (not the actual photo)

Even some tattoo artists are wishing they'd slept on it before getting permanently inked

Image credits: sydneymulvaneytattoos

Sydney Mulvaney went viral after sharing a TikTok video revealing her worst tattoo facepalms

Image credits: sydneytattoos

Image credits: sydneytattoos

Image credits: sydneytattoos

Image credits: sydneytattoos

Image credits: sydneytattoos

Here's part one of the tattoo artist's painfully hilarious video

[embed]https://www.tiktok.com/@sydneytattoos/video/7369997159661407519[/embed]

"I'm crying": netizens found the Miley Cyrus tattoo particularly amusing

If you feel you should have slept on it before getting inked, you're not alone

Many of us have experienced buyer’s remorse at one point or another. Maybe it was a pair of shoes you thought you needed but actually didn’t. Or a shopping spree that went a little overboard when you needed some retail therapy. Fortunately, many items have a return policy. Tattoos, not so much.

Tattoo regret is nothing new. It’s been around for ages. The difference is that social media has given people a platform to air their bad life choices, and allowed others to feel less ashamed about their own.

The skincare experts at Advanced Dermatology advise anyone planning to get a tattoo to sleep on it. And not just for a night, they say… At least a few months.

The team should know because when they surveyed 600 people, they found that 78% of them regretted at least one of their tattoos. And 19% of participants with two tattoos regretted both. 3-out-of-4 people who suffer from “tattoo regret” admit that they didn’t plan for the tattoo beyond a few weeks.

As we've come to painfully learn, regret doesn't always hit us immediately. Sometimes, it takes a while to rear its ugly head. Like “when you start to hit certain milestones in your life,” says Brooklyn-based tattoo artist Gabs Miceli.

“I've seen some people who have loved their tattoos consistently the whole time they've had them,” Miceli told USA Today. “And then I've seen other people falter in their attraction to them soon after getting them.”

The Advanced Dermatology survey found that the smaller your tattoo, the more likely you are to regret it.

“63% of people with a tattoo smaller than the palm of their hand regret it. However, only 2% of people with full-sleeves or longer, regret their tattoo,” revealed the site. The team believes this is because people with full-sleeves or longer spent more time thinking about it.

“Plus, it’s easier, and faster, to get a star on your shoulder, than it is to go full-on Travis Barker,” they add.

When it comes to the reasons people regret their tattoos, 35% of those surveyed said they made an impulsive decision, 29% stated ‘significant meaning’, and 18% admitted they’d once thought the tattoo would make them look cool. Ooops.

Meanwhile, a separate Pew Research survey found that the most common reasons for people getting tattooed in the first place were to honor or remember someone or something (69%), to make a statement about what they believe (47%), and to improve their personal appearance (32%).