You probably remember playing with temporary tattoos as a kid, but have you ever heard of temporary sleeve tattoos?
You might be surprised to learn that 78% of people who have tattoos end up regretting at least one of them. The last thing you want is to fall into that statistic.
Thankfully, temporary sleeve tattoos offer the best of both worlds, giving you the realistic look you want without having to dye your skin forever.
Not sure if a temporary sleeve tattoo is right for you? Let’s cover why they’re a great alternative to traditional tattoos.
The Financial Burden of Ink
Tattoos are pricey. Most shops have a minimum, so even a tiny tattoo can cost $100 or more, while something big and complex can end up costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars over multiple sessions. And for good reason! Tattoo artists are just that - artists - and deserve to be paid well for their time and talent. A temporary sleeve tattoo can save you hundreds.
If you’re going to get a quality tattoo, it’s essential to make the necessary investment. You certainly wouldn’t want to be “thrifty” when it comes to something that’ll be on your body for a lifetime.
Temporary sleeve tattoos, in contrast, can cost anywhere from $10 to $20, depending on the size. Temporary sleeve tattoos can last nearly a month with proper care, so you’ll get your money’s worth in that time without having to deal with any pain or permanence!
“Ouch, my skin!”
Another solid argument for avoiding the needle with a temporary sleeve tattoo is pain. Admittedly, it’s not like it feels great to sit there with a needle pounding in and out of your skin for an extended period. The subsequent healing time is a reminder of the incident, and if you don’t have the highest threshold for pain, it’s understandable why you’d want to stay away from permanent tattoos with a temporary sleeve tattoo.
Never mind that a fresh tattoo is a massive open wound just waiting to get infected. You also have to trust that the shop is clean and that your artist is using clean tools, new needles, and fresh ink. That’s a lot of faith to put into a stranger.
Temporary Tattoo Sleeves - The Quickest, Safest Alternative
Luckily, there’s a pretty dope solution that covers all of the excuses against having art on your skin: temporary sleeve tattoos.
It’s a safe bet that most tattooed adults started as temporary-tattooed kids. Who could resist those colorful quarter machines full of fun, surprising designs? Now, you can relive those days with temporary sleeve tattoos in the same edgy, artistic designs you’d pay a real tattoo artist big money for.
Unlike the tiny tattoos we got in the quarter machines and cereal boxes when we were young, temporary sleeve tattoos now come in sizes and shapes for just about any body part. You can buy sheets with multiple tattoos to wear individually or together for a custom look, a complete design as large as a full temporary tattoo sleeve, or even a back design.
You’re not limited to cheesy cartoon characters anymore, either. Temporary tattoo sleeves come in a mind-boggling range of designs and art styles. Whether you want to cover yourself in skulls, unicorns, words, occult symbols, or celestial bodies, there’s a temporary tattoo to help you express your most authentic self. With a temporary sleeve tattoo, you can create any look you want.
The beauty of temporary tattoos is that when your authentic self changes, so can the temporary sleeve tattoos. You don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to love the same art 20 years from now. This non-permanent alternative to tattooing lasts from 10 to 25 days, depending on how well you care for the temporary sleeve tattoos during that time.
I’ve known friends to painstakingly decide on a design, come up with the cash to get it done right, and sit through hours and hours of sessions, only to realize years later that they’re not into the same art style or interests and have to get it painfully covered up. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s double the wasted money and double the pain that could have been avoided with a temporary sleeve tattoo.
Temporary tattoo sleeves mean you can have an Americana-style tattoo with a dagger through the heart today and a blackwork Viking sleeve next month. Your temporary tattoo can be a semi-permanent expression of who you are (or who you want the world to see you as), with the same level of commitment as a new haircut or dye job.
Your kids (or your cool nieces and nephews) can get in on the temporary tattoo fun, too, with a temporary sleeve tattoo for kids! There are temporary tattoos in various sizes and designs that kids love. They’ll be the coolest kids on the block when their friends see them with a full sleeve of an owl on a skull or a Batman chest tattoo.
They’re perfect for performers and artists, too. The so-called “professional” world is slowly beginning to accept tattooed employees, but that’s certainly not universal. If you want to achieve a particular look for an event, performance, or gig but need to look professional for work on Monday, temporary tattoo sleeves are a great option.
Other Tattoo Alternatives
Of course, temporary tattoos like these aren’t the only temporary alternative to permanent body modification. Let’s explore these other tattoo alternatives and how they compare.
Nylon Sleeves
Nylon sleeves are a pretty fun clothing style. They look kind of believable from a distance, and there is an appeal to having an item of clothing that gives you the same alternative look every time you want to wear it.
That being said, they’re no good as a substitute for an actual tattoo or a temporary sleeve tattoo. Once you get close to these nylon sleeves, it quickly becomes obvious that they’re fake. Not that it matters what anyone thinks, but if your goal is to test drive some ink and have a particular look for a week or so, the mesh sleeve idea just doesn’t cut it. A temporary sleeve tattoo is a much better choice for realism.
Semi-Permanent Ink
There’s a bit of controversy here in the semi-permanent ink topic. There are tattoo artists that say they have an ink formula with which they tattoo lightly under the skin, and in several weeks (or several months, or several years, or maybe never - it depends), the design fades away. Sounds great, right?
Well, the problem is that once you put something under the skin, there’s no guarantee that it’ll ever truly fade away, unlike with a temporary sleeve tattoo. And to that end, if you’re getting something done under the skin, why not just get a tattoo?
Semi-permanent tattoos may be a valuable option for determining whether you want to make a design boldly permanent, but aside from that, they’re just a gimmick. A temporary sleeve tattoo is a great way to test run a tattoo, rather than semi-permanent ink.
Tattoo Pens
If you feel extra DIY-ish, you can buy skin-safe tattoo pens available in the craft section of many stores and simply draw your tattoo design on yourself! Of course, this isn’t going to be a viable option long-term, especially for a design as large as a full or half-sleeve. Not to mention how difficult it is to draw on your own arm! Getting a temporary sleeve tattoo is much more efficient.
Temporary Tattoos as a Permanent Tattoo Replacement
The more you think about it, the more it makes sense to explore temporary tattoo placement over the costly and painful permanent and semi-permanent alternatives. They’re inexpensive, so if you don’t like them, you haven’t wasted your money, and you can try a new one a few weeks later.
Sure, temporary tattoo sleeves could be the perfect way to decide on placement for a permanent tattoo. But with all the options available, you may give up on the idea of a permanent tattoo altogether and stick with versatile, pain-free temporary tattoos for life.
If I’m being honest, I love having tattoos, but I hate getting tattooed. Some people say they like the pain, but I certainly don’t, and I know I’m not the only one. And I’ve already had a tattoo that I regretted, and in case you didn’t know, the cover-up hurts even worse than the first go-round.
True, you don’t get the custom, permanent design that you would get from going to a reputable tattoo artist for the real thing. But with a temporary tattoo sleeve, maybe that doesn’t matter all that much. After all, if you can change your tattoos once a month, who cares if you’ll love them forever?
These realistic-looking temporary sleeve tattoos might be the next big thing in body art. In today’s world of self-discovery, self-exploration, and radical self-acceptance, temporary body mods like temporary tattoos are a new and improved medium for self-expression.
Wrapping It Up
You can easily fix any reasons for avoiding a tattoo shop with a temporary tattoo application. Let’s sum it up: temporary tattoos are cost efficient. They’re painless. If you regret them in a week, they come off. There are plenty of ways to get the desired effect, and you can change it up as often as you want.
You get the best of both worlds: all the “aesthetic” and “vibe” of the inked out, sleeved up person who spent hours in the chair, hundreds on the work, with none of the pain, cost, or commitment. Temporary sleeve tattoos are a fun, stylish, temporary alternative to permanent ink, whether you ever get a real tattoo or not.