A tattoo is a form of body modification, made by permanent ink into the dermis layer of the to change the pigment. The first written to the word, « tattoo » (or Samoan « Tatau ») appears in the journal of Joseph Banks, the naturalist aboard Captain Cook’s ship the HMS Endeavour in 1769. Tattooing has been practiced for centuries in many cultures spread throughout the world. Indeed, the island of Great Britain takes its name from tattooing, with Britons as ‘people of the designs’ and the Picts, who inhabited the northern part of Britain, literally ‘the painted people’.

British people the most tattooed in Europe. Despite some taboos tattooing, the art continues to be popular in many parts of the world.

Since the 1990s, tattoos have become a part of global and Western fashion, common among both sexes, to all economic classes, and to age groups from the later teen years to middle age. By the 2010s, even a tattooed Barbie doll was put out in 2011, which was widely accepted, although it did some controversy.