Flower tattoos have experienced a rise in popularity lately, due to the greater acceptance of women in society who have been getting tattooed. You may have heard that different colors and types of flowers have different meanings, and this is true of these types of tattoos, too. Generically, the flowers can mean many things, while particular flowers like the lotus and rose can mean more specific things.
The parts of life connected to nature, birth, vitality, and procreation are summoned up through the flower tattoo. This is because we are able to see a flower’s entire life cycle, from the time it emerges from the earth, as it grows and blooms, and eventually as it dries up and wilts. The life process we see in a flower is driven home whenever we have a tattoo with a flower on it. It is additionally true that different colors on the flowers represent separate meanings. Seeing a white flower tattoo brings up the idea of purity, while the color of red on a flower can mean the blood of Christ or burning passion.
Having a rose flower tattoo symbolizes love, or more specifically a pure love. In the 16th century, people who were condemned to death would have a rose tattooed on them so they could be instantly recognized if they escaped. The feelings of passion or love are what a tattooed rose symbolizes in our society today. Tattooed roses gain their symbolism from the flower that we give to our loved ones during romantic occasions. Naturally, this accounts for why we get tattooed with a rose in order to show how much we love a person. It’s probably not a coincidence that the rose is the most popular of all tattoos picturing flowers, and even more so, since men are getting tattooed with roses as well.
The tattoo of a lotus flower has many of the same representations in eastern countries as the rose does in the west, namely those of love and purity. Unlike the rose, however, the lotus has multiple other meanings. The traditional symbols of a lotus include beauty, goodness, fortune, enlightenment, and peace. Through the acquiring of an acacia tattoo, you are symbolizing chaste love and friendship. For the Bells of Ireland flower, the person getting a tattoo can be getting it because it represents good luck or because they wish for the bells of freedom to ring in Ireland.
If you consider yourself a perfect lover, you might want to have a tulip tattooed on your arm to symbolize fame and passionate love. For the shy or timid, a tattoo of a violet is more appropriate. Two other flowers are popular as tattoos, and those are the Iris and magnolias – the former represents faith, wisdom, and virtue, while the latter represents a love of nature and gives off a sense of nobility. Besides being beautiful, getting tattooed with a flower can have many different meanings. Make sure you are conscious of these meanings as you pick out your flower tattoo so that it says what you want it to, regardless of the size or boldness of your tattoo.
