Don't rush out and get that watercolor mandala just yet.
Much like putting out forest fires, only you can decide which tattoo is right for you. The artist may make some recommendations, your inked friends might have their own opinions, and your mom could give you her input (since she's watched roughly half of a season of Ink Master), but it's ultimately the tattoo that you have to wear on your own skin.
That said, some tattoos will likely seem a lot less dumb down the line than others. When you see a barbed wire armband or a flaming chrome heart, they look a little dated. But while the colors may fade out of decades-old tattoos, many styles of tattooing (American traditional, Chicano black and gray, Japanese, etc.) from generations ago still hold up as modern-day tattoos - if you can tell what they are. For now, we'll look at five of the current trends in tattooing that will likely be long gone a decade from now.
Watercolor Tattoos
Of all the current trends in tattooing, watercolor tattoos might be the most horrific. Every decade or two, these short-term tattoos become popular, and a whole new group of unknowing individuals get them. The problem is that the way watercolor tattoos are done isn't conducive to them lasting very long. Within a handful of years, the lines of your beautiful abstract cat will be gone, and you'll be left with something that looks like Jackson Pollock did as a toddler. If you've really got your heart set on a watercolor tattoo, make sure your artist keeps the bulk of the color within a black outline and preferably not too many colors too close to each other without black separating them. Regardless, don't expect your grandkids to be able to tell what it is.
Mandala/Geometric Tattoos
There's nothing inherently wrong about a geometric tattoo as long as it's big enough (like the one in the cover photo). Considering that the black ink in each line will expand over time, some of the super intricate mandalas out there will just look like one big black splotch in a decade. Right now, it seems like everyone and their mother wants to get a mandala tattoo, so they're not original now and probably won't be trendy for that much longer. If you legitimately need a mandala on your body right now, go ahead and get the tattoo equivalent of a Von Dutch trucker hat (remember when those were everywhere?!). Otherwise, you might be better off just waiting a few years for the trend to die down and then deciding whether it's the right design for you. At least know what it means before you get one.
Intentionally Poorly Done "Hipster" Tattoos
Some people make a living off of tattooing with a battery and a guitar string or with their eyes closed, but it's not really how most people feel tattoos are supposed to be done. Given that art is subjective and you can like whatever you like and blah blah blah, this new trend of getting ironically terrible tattoos will likely die out when the word "hipster" stops being a thing. If you're going to spend a bunch of money to get inked, at least make it look clean. And if you really insist on an intentionally poorly drawn piece, at least go with something creative and funny rather than depressing or gross -- then you can write it off as a joke when it's not cool anymore.
White/UV Tattoos
One of the many travesties we can all hold the Kardashians accountable for popularizing, tattoos in white and/or blacklight-sensitive ink seem to be on their way out after spending entirely too long in the spotlight. As anyone who's ever had white ink put into a tattoo will tell you, it's the first color to disappear. While black is there forever (red and green both hold up for an awful long time too), white tattoos start disappearing in as little as a year. Again, you're spending hard-earned cash on a tattoo, make it something that'll be there for a while. As for UV tattoos, they kind of defeat the purpose of getting inked in the first place, and they're generally only found on the most boring and non-committal of people. If you don't want a tattoo that can be seen in the daylight, don't get tattooed. It's that simple.
Finger Tattoos
For every basic girl with an infinity sign on her wrist or a dolphin on her ankle, there's some spoiled college kid out there with a dumb finger tattoo. Whether it's getting mustaches put on the inside of your fingers (for better variety when wearing finger-'staches) or "BAE IS LIT" across your knuckles, just remember that there are people out there without your sense of humor who will just see an idiot with finger tattoos. That's not to say you can never get your fingers/knuckles done, just don't make them one of the first things you get tattooed -- and try not to be a moron about them.
