tattoos

The relatively empty flights of past months are filling up as more people get vaccinated — and make summer plans. Are there still risks to weigh?

Health & Safety

Coronavirus FAQ: To Travel Or Not To Travel? Plus, Tattoos And Vaccines Can Mix

12:18pm March 26, 2021

by Sheila Mulrooney Eldred

Airports are getting busier, but the CDC hasn't issued new guidelines for vaccinated folks. What's a wannabe traveler to do? And is it OK to get a vaccine if you just got tattooed? Or have no spleen?

Shane MacLeod is covered head-to-toe in tattoos. He says he's tired of being pre-judged.

National

Tattoo Removal Programs Help Former Inmates Wipe The Slate Clean

11:45am January 16, 2020

by Judith Kogan

For people who have been incarcerated, head and neck tattoos are often a barrier to reentering society and getting jobs. Some former inmates are removing their tattoos to help leave the past behind.

Chingham Chatrahpa, 75, shows off his facial and neck tattoos. A face tattoo would be etched after a man's first headhunting expedition, usually at the age of 18-to-25 years. Only a warrior who decapitated an enemy could get a neck tattoo.

Health & Safety

PHOTOS: The Vanishing Body Art Of A Tribe Of Onetime Headhunters

7:00am March 24, 2018

by Kamala Thiagarajan

The tattoos were once a sign that a man in India's Konyak clan was a headhunter. A new book tells their story.

Egyptologists say that these markings on a predynastic male mummy, revealed using infrared imaging, are tattoos showing two animals.

Science

Some Of The Oldest-Ever Tattoos Found On Egyptian Mummies

4:56pm March 02, 2018

by Merrit Kennedy

Thanks to new technology, archaeologists in the British Museum have just discovered what they say are the earliest-known body art displaying figures.

Brian Keith Thompson, owner of the Body Electric tattoo and piercing studio in Hollywood, says he is relentless in enforcing hygiene standards.

Teen Wants A Tattoo? Pediatricians Say Here's How To Do It Safely

9:54am September 18, 2017

by Patti Neighmond

For the first time, the American Academy of Pediatrics has weighed in on what teens and young adults (and their doctors and parents) need to know about safely getting piercings and tattoos.

Queue Listen Now

Nicole O'Hara was diagnosed with breast cancer at 29 years old. She decided to have her mastectomy scars covered up with a tattoo.

VIDEO: Where Mastectomy Scars Raged, A Tattoo Garden Blooms

5:00am August 12, 2017

Nicole O'Hara was 29 when she had a double mastectomy after a cancer diagnosis. She chose to cover the scars with a tattoo that blooms like her garden, with apple blossoms, bluebells and heather.

Maddie Keating shows her arm before and after her tattoo by Brian Finn which covered her scars.

National

Effects Of Toledo Tattoo Artist's Work Are More Than Skin Deep

1:49pm February 19, 2016

On his days off, Brian Finn offers free tattoos to people who want to cover up scars from domestic violence, self-harm or other trauma.

Queue Listen Now

A tattoo artist works in London in 2014. This September, a Colombian organization is offering to edit erroneous tattoos — free — and hopefully interest young people in the value of good grammar and spelling.

World News

Undoing A Permanent 'Oops': Colombian Scholars Tackle Tattoo Typos

1:56pm August 06, 2015

by Camila Domonoske

This year's Festival of the Word in Bogota will feature the usual authors and linguists — plus a professional tattoo artist. Some visitors can have spelling errors inked into their skin fixed, free.

A tattoo that starts as a personal statement can sometimes have medical consequences.

Health & Safety

What We Know About Tattoo Reactions Only Goes Skin-Deep

4:24pm May 28, 2015

by Scott Hensley

About a quarter of U.S. adults have at least one tattoo. Yet doctors say we still don't understand the full extent of the skin's reaction to tattoos. For some people, problems linger for months.

Siblings Jessica and Oliver Schaap of Holland, Mich., test out the temporary vegetable tattoos known as Tater Tats.

Produce Pride: Showing The Love With Vegetable Tattoos

3:24pm February 25, 2015

by Eliza Barclay

Vegetable tattoos, both temporary and permanent, can make for beautiful body art. Some enthusiasts are hoping to use them to encourage healthy, seasonal eating.