These cover-up tattoos are blowing our mind

Here at HelloGiggles, we’re constantly looking for tattoospiration. We’ve oohed over literary tattoos and ahhed over these insanely detailed cross-stitch versions. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen our fair share of regrettable tattoos — they happen to the best of us. Maybe our tastes have changed, or maybe the tattoo was just badly executed to begin with. At best, the tattoo can leave us with a great story to tell, but at worst, they can leave us filled with embarrassment and regret. At-home removal kits have been proven ineffective and even dangerous, and some of us can’t afford or simply don’t want to endure painful, drawn-out laser removal procedures.

Enter the cover-up tattoo. A good cover-up will elevate a disappointing tattoo into a gorgeous, elegant piece of living art that you can be proud to show off the rest of your life We’ve come across some amazing cover-ups on Instagram that are giving us major tattoo FOMO. No dark inky blobs to hide under your clothes here. It almost makes us want to get a bad tattoo, just so we can cover it up. Almost.

Other tattoos offer up what seems like a fresh start, ending with a completely different tattoo that shows no trace of the original:

Sometimes, the tattoo just needs to be updated and re-done, giving new life to an old idea.

Some tattoos are relatively easy to cover up, simply utilizing existing elements within the old tattoo:

Other times, you just need to take your tattoo over to the Dark Side.

These are all so incredible. We’ll just be on Insta all day looking at more. NBD.

(Image via Instagram)