Flower Power for the 21st Century Tattoo Art

Those old enough to remember the days of Woodstock, Haight-Ashbury, and the Volkswagen microbus as the transportation of choice will also remember Peace Signs and Flower Power. There was even a 1967 hit song by Scott McKenzie with the lyrics," If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."

What goes around comes around, or so many a cliché lover has said, and the Flower Power of the 1960s has resurfaced again, not in hairpieces, but in tattoos. Flower tattoos have an undeniable appeal to those of gentle spirit, both male and female. But politics aside, flower tattoos are simply lovely to look at and that alone makes them a favorite for women.

Women who began flocking to the boardrooms and offices of the American business culture in the 1980s also began flocking to the tattoo parlors of America, although at first their choices were both small and discreetly positioned. All that has changed in the past twenty-five years, and the 21st century woman is willing to match any man in her choice of tattoos. Yet flower tattoos still remain the one which women most often request.

Many women choose single small flower tattoos as their introduction to the art of tattooing, and add more to it to form a garland or use it as the basis for a larger and more complex tattoo at a later date. And flower tattoos allow the freedom to choose any colors in the tattoo artist's ink palette, whether or not they are actually found in nature. Blue roses, for instance, are extremely popular floral tattoos, and represent a striving for the impossible, because there are no naturally blue roses.

Roses, blue or otherwise, are without a doubt the most requested of all floral tattoos. The have come to symbolize everything from passionate love to eternal beauty to, when their thorns are portrayed, danger and hardship.

Hawaiian floral tattoos, on the other hand, are generally considered unisex tattoos, and are as popular with men as with women. They can include everything from the big, showy yellow Hawaiian Hibiscus to the delicate Cattleya Orchids, the blooms of which can measure anywhere from the one inch to eight inches across. Miniature Cattleyas are perfect for floral tattoos on the ankle or shoulder blade, while the larger blooms can decorate backs, arms, shoulders, legs, or any place that one wants covered in beauty.

One of the biggest appeals of floral tattoos is that they will never become outdated; and a skilled tattoo artist can even create fantasy flowers with the colors of one variety, petals of another, and leaves and stems of a third. A floral tattoo of a single bloom can be centered around the navel; floral tattoos can be vines winding around arms or legs.