One woman recently went viral after getting her partner’s name ‘Kevin’ tattooed on her forehead. Ana Stanskovsky, 27, explained in a TikTok, viewed over 19 million times, that it was a way to “show off” her feelings.
“I know it’s a little bit crazy,” said Stanskovsky. “But I like to express my feelings, and I think if you really love someone you should be able to show it off.”
Some commenters have suggested the tattoo isn’t real but Stanskovsky insists she has fully committed to the permanent ‘Kevin’ marking.
A fashionista who lived to regret her facial tattoo is Lottie Moss, half sister of model Kate Moss.
Last December she posted pictures of the word ‘lover’ tattooed beneath her eye with the caption: “Don’t drink alcohol, kids … We’re going to learn to love it, the world will love it and my mum will learn to love it.”
She joins celebrities including Liam Payne, who this year unveiled a small facial tattoo on his right cheek. Justin Bieber’s tattoos reveal how important his faith is to him: has a small cross below his eye and ‘grace’ above an eyebrow.
Singer Cardi B this year unveiled her own tattoo – her son’s name, Wave, on her jawline.
What makes people get tattooed somewhere so permanently prominent – and do they regret or own their decision?
Lauren Merry, 37, has been getting tattoos for 21 years. “So it’s no surprise I had barely any room left and started tattooing my face!” she says.
She says her face and head are actually the least painful parts of the body to get inked. “Ribs, feet and armpits are far worse,” she says.
One, an upside down crucifix on her face, is deliberately subversive. “It’s a middle finger to my childhood,” she says. “My dad was a church pastor and from a very young age I knew I was gay. It was tough; I was constantly told it’s a sin.”
A surprising twist has developed: “It’s now dad’s favourite one I have,” she says. “He no longer has anything to do with the church, thankfully.”
And the large patterned one on her forehead? “I don’t have room anywhere else. Literally nowhere!” she says.
Merry has never had any issues with employment. “99 per cent of my roles have been customer facing – retail, sales, restaurants,” she says.
Xander Helsby, 26, is initially nonchalant when he first discusses his facial tattoos which include a rune on his cheek, some intricate dot work and tribal markings.
“Why not?” he shrugs with a wink. “I’m here for a good time, not for a long time.”
But the conversation becomes poignant when he discusses the deeper meaning behind the word ‘fearless’ which he got tattooed above his eyebrow at 21. “I got diagnosed with HIV,” he says. “Whenever I start hating myself, I look in the mirror to remind myself: I’m fearless.”
The tattoos act as an icebreaker. “People approach me all the time for conversations about them,” he says. If he doesn’t want to go there with the ‘fearless’ story, he has a backup explanation. “I tell them it says Fergaliscious!” he says.
Moonlighting as a drag queen, Helsby uses the make-up tricks he knows from his performance role to cover up all his facial tatts for job interviews.
“Once I’ve got the job and prove I can do the job, I don’t hide them,” he says, adding that he never had issues when he worked as a commercial litigation law specialist.
There’s a downside. “I get followed around in shops a lot; treated like a criminal. And I get some stares, which sometimes makes me feel self-conscious,” he says.
“However you need to remember: your face is tattooed; it’s not exactly normal! Once people get to know me, they realise I’m a huge softie.”
Comedian Rudy-Lee Taurua, 32, says his multiple head tattoos were about breaking the rules.
“It was a rebellion. A way of showing: I don’t accept your society, I don’t play by your rules. I’m my own entity,” he said.
“But now the rules have changed. They’re just cool fashionista pieces everyone’s getting; they’ve lost their flavour a bit.”
Taurua, from Adelaide, got his first tattoo at 17, having grown up in a family of tattoo artists and heavily tattooed relatives. “It was part of my family culture,” he says. “Although Mum urged me not to get any on my face while she’s alive!”
Some facial tattoos hint at that more old school underworld element, with the classic being a teardrop coming from the eye – which can indicate having attempted or committed murder or spent time in prison. But meanings can vary: a teardrop can also be an expression of profound grief over the loss of a loved one.
“Death before dishonour” reads one of the first head tattoos Taurua got inked. “It means I’d rather die than give someone up. And don’t snitch,” self-confessed “ex-naughty boy” Rudy Lee says.
“I was living a lifestyle fuelled by drugs and alcohol – getting in fights outside pubs, wanting that street cred, that reputation as the tough guy,” he says. “That lifestyle isn’t who I am any more. It was an anarchistic period of my life I’ve put behind me.”
So does he have regrets?
“There’s no point regretting anything,” he says. “Everything I did felt right at that point in time. And if in hindsight it turned out to be wrong, I’ve learnt a lesson from it. So how can you regret learning?”
He’s had no issues at work as a tradie industrial painter – “a job where no one expects you in a suit and tie.”
Now, he uses the head tatts as part of his onstage persona to confound expectations for his comedy audiences: Taurua often sees shocked faces when he comes out as gay in a gig.
“I joke that I’m not a cocaine dealer, I’m a coke buyer. I don’t even like coke; it’s just the easiest way to get a straight man in a toilet cubicle alone!” he said.
He’s noticed varying reactions: some gay bars deny him entry, at other times gay guys fetishise him. Taurua has learnt to “embrace the judgement.”
For some, like Jack Hudson from Sydney, their facial tattoos are a world away from drink, drugs or the stereotypical gangster lifestyle.
Hudson, 31, who has a senior role at a marketing agency focused on the video gaming industry, has an ‘X’ tattoo on his cheek. It represents a community in which he found identity and purpose: the ‘straight edge’ community, which shuns alcohol, smoking and drugs.
“I found the straight edge community on the hardcore music scene,” Hudson says. “I finally felt I fitted in – drinking and that lifestyle never resonated with me,” he says.
The ‘X’ is a nod to the differentiator given to underage revellers at music gigs. An ‘X’ is drawn on their hands so the bar staff don’t serve them alcohol. It shows the ‘straight edgers’ have continued the no alcohol policy of their own free will post 18.
People make assumptions when they see Hudson’s head tatts though. “I’m always the one people approach to ask for a light or a ciggie,” he says.
There’s another reason he got the tattoos somewhere so prominent. “I haven’t had a hairline for a long time,” he says. “So the tatts kind of round out my face.”
Some he got simply because he connected with the design; others are deeply personal. He has matching head tattoos of a compass with his wife representing their daughter’s name: Atlas.
While he does wish he’d done “a little more forward planning,” he wouldn’t call this regret. “You can always get it removed or something else tattooed over it if you grow out of it,” he says. Partly the lack of regret is because of how accepting his colleagues – who had “a lot of questions” – have been.
One person has been less accepting: his mum. “She was cool with all my other tatts, but the one place she made me promise I wouldn’t get inked is my head,” he says. “Sometimes she’ll see it and say ‘I really don’t want that to be there.’ But she respects that they mean a lot to me. She’s even started saying they suit me, lately.”
Gary Nunn is a freelance writer | X: @garynunn1