Bizarre ink

Tattoos may be fashionable, but Hollywood star Susan Sarandon has caused a stir by getting her first one at the age of 61. Is it ever a good idea to have your body permanently inscribed?

THEY were once a mark of rebellion, reminiscent of drunken sailors on shore leave, or hard-faced ex-jailbirds, but these days tattoos are both fashionable and mainstream. They're seen on just about everyone now, from naughty teenagers to office workers, young mums and trendy grandparents – in fact, around one in five people in the UK are currently sporting ink.

Commonplace they may be, yet tattoos still have the power to shock. Mike Tyson has a bold Maori design snaking across his face, while one tattoo devotee, nicknamed the Lizard Man, famously covered his entire body in inky scales.

Then there's 61-year-old mother of three Susan Sarandon. The glamorous Hollywood actress, who starred in Thelma & Louise, has always shunned a high-profile celebrity lifestyle in favour of political activism and a relatively normal existence. However, she has recently been spotted sporting two tattoos, one ten-inch design on her neck and one on her wrist. They are the Oscar-winning actress's first tattoos and incorporate the initials of each of her three children, a theme that's been popular with footballers and Z-list celebrities for the past few years.

When asked why she's chosen to get herself inked in her sixties, she responded, "Why not? I turned 60 and after a while you think, 'Well I've only got my body for a few more years anyway.'" And she justified the large tattoo running down her back by saying: "It's on my back so I don't see it, but I know they are always there."

Jeff Kohl, the owner of tattoo parlour Studio XIII in Edinburgh says that age shouldn't be a barrier to getting a tattoo. "Tattoos used to carry a bit of a stigma, but now they're so (widely] accepted that anyone can have them, regardless of age or gender," he says. "Now about 50 per cent of my customers are women, and I'm definitely getting more older customers coming in for their first tattoos. Sixty isn't old any more, and usually these customers are people who still feel young and (have] loads they want to do in their lives."

However, might Sarandon regret such a permanent alteration to her body? While children's names are a fairly safe bet compared with a partner's moniker, there's a chance that she could get bored of the design, or that it could simply go out of fashion.

Melanie Chisholm, aka Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls, famously bore a Celtic cross around her bicep, a popular design in the mid-1990s when Celtic and tribal tattoos were very common. However she recently announced that she was planning to spend £10,000 having it removed, along with nine other tattoos which include a phoenix across her shoulders and the word 'Angel' above her navel. "They look nice when you're toned and tanned," she is reported to have said, "but when I put on weight they looked awful."

"If people come in for their first tattoo and they want to get it in a very visible place, like their neck, I always warn them that lots of people will have a problem with it, from employers to customs officers. Generally, we wouldn't be willing to give someone a tattoo in a visible place on their first visit," says Kohl.

At 61, Sarandon is probably confident her tastes won't change. That isn't likely to be the case for 21-year-old Transformers actress Megan Fox. Voted the sexiest woman in the world by readers of FHM recently, the actress has several tattoos, including "a poem I wrote on my ribcage and a symbol for strength on my neck, and my boyfriend Brian's name tattooed next to my pie".

It would be interesting to know how she'll feel about that in 40 years' time. However, she must be doing something right to top the FHM poll. Of the women who made it into the Top 10, six have tattoos, showing that not only are tattoos on women normal, but they're also seen as sexy by a lot of younger men.

Tattooing has a rich history, traceable as far back as Neolithic times. The body of 'Otzi' the Iceman, dating from the fourth to fifth millennium BC, was found in the Otz valley in the Alps, sporting 57 carbon tattoos consisting of dots and lines. The word itself derives from a Tahitian word, tatau. Captain James Cook used the word "tattow" when he first saw evidence of it in Tahiti in the late 1700s.

Many different cultures throughout history have boasted their own tattoo traditions, using primitive techniques such as the rubbing of cuts and wounds with ashes, or pricking the skin in order to insert dye.

In New Zealand tradition, Maori warriors were decorated from puberty onwards with the intricate "moko" full-face tattoos. This ritual still exists among Maori men, although it is less common today.

For most of the 20th century, tattoos were seen mainly on military servicemen and the lower working classes. Tattoos "fragmented" in the 1960s, however, and over the next decade became important identity symbols for biker gangs, convicts and punks. This was the beginning of the "tattoo renaissance", whereby they were acknowledged as icons of popular culture by the 1980s. Their popularity has burgeoned steadily ever since.

They may be the height of fashion right now but, as we all know, fashions fade, while ink is eternal. Well, almost.

If Sarandon does decide that her tattoos were a huge mistake, she can always pay to get them removed. However, the procedure is expensive and painful and can leave scarring.

"Most people actually quite like their tattoos, but removal is an option for those who regret it," says Dr Moira Robertson of the Edinburgh-based laser clinic Laserase, which specialises in tattoo removal.

"Some people bitterly regret having them done after just a week, while others eventually grow out of their tattoos or find they're frowned upon in the workplace. Some people have them removed because they think they won't look nice in their wedding photographs; others become grandparents and think they're not age-appropriate any more.

"Names and initials we commonly remove, for obvious reasons. I recently had a client who had their spouse's initials tattooed on their ring finger, but wanted them removed because they were getting re-married."

Such concerns don't trouble Sarandon, who appears to have caught the inky bug: "I'm going to save the next one until I'm 70 or 80," she announced.

TOP TATTOO TIPS

CURLY, an artist at the Tattoo Club of Great Britain in Oxford, offers these tips on getting a tattoo:

• Choose someone capable of doing a good job. Ask friends, read magazines and go online to find the best person for you.

• Not all tattoo artists can do every type of design. We all have our specialities, from portraiture to bold graphics, so choose someone who specialises in the style you're looking for.

• Ask to see examples of an artist's work. Remember that one studio can employ several artists, so ask to see examples by the person who will work on you.

• I tell anyone who gets names or initials done that they're mad. Avoid them at all costs, because you'll just end up regretting them.

• Never get a tattoo thinking that you might get it removed one day, but if you're nervous, bear in mind that green and yellow inks are the most difficult colours to remove.

• If it's your first time, don't go for very visible parts of your body, such as the hands or face.

CASE STUDY: Mercy Breheny, 34

'It's nice to have a little secret tucked away'

I THINK it's quite sweet that Susan Sarandon has chosen to get tattoos at 61. It's nice to keep your mind open to new things. At least if she regrets it she won't have to worry about it for quite so long.

I have four tattoos: two tiny ones, one about the size of a biscuit, and one that's really quite big. When I got my first tattoo I was 16 and I wanted to have an edge on my peers. It was only tiny and now it's covered with something else, but I enjoyed the fleeting sense of superiority it gave me. Later I got some bigger work done for no other reason than that I really like tattoos. I like that you can meddle with your naked self and change your body. It feels quite reckless!

My tattoos are all animal and plant-based. I think a tattoo should be like a nice piece of jewellery that complements your shape, rather than a stamp on your body. Nature forms work perfectly for this.

My back piece is a combination of some irises I pinched off a William Morris wallpaper and a pair of magpie wings with a bird's skull between them. The skull was badly done. One day I'll get round to having it removed and reworked.

I don't regret my tattoos, but I do regret letting inferior tattooists mark my body. I'm considering having the smaller ones removed … and replaced with something better! Back when I first got tattooed there was very little choice in Edinburgh. Now there are a lot of tattooists around. I'd never get tattooed in the UK again, though. Good artists in the US really have the edge. I had a bad tattoo "repaired" in New Orleans and it really opened my eyes to what they can do.

I've chosen to get tattoos in places hidden by my clothes because I don't want to force them on other people. I don't want to be judged for one thing right away. It's nice to have a little secret tucked away. That's why one is on the inside of my lower lip.