Black script tattoo reading Forever 18 with a small butterfly, sitting on the lower torso above a yellow bikini bottom.

Forever 18 script tattoo on lower torso

Lettering · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop of a torso wearing a yellow bikini, with a hand resting on the hip. The tattoo is the words Forever 18 in flowing black script, with a small butterfly outline at the right end. The ink is solid black with no shading, and the image is entirely in warm skin tones and yellow fabric.

Lettering Other Script Butterfly

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lad wanted it done in a hurry, which is how I knew he'd regret it. Kevin Doyle sat in my chair at Smoke Alley in Bristol in the spring of 1984, a folded birth certificate in one fist and a crumpled fiver in the other. He'd been turned away from the Locarno door three weekends running and wanted proof, in ink, that he was older than he looked.

Keep reading

I drew the words in a looping hand, Forever 18, on a sheet of tracing paper first, then pressed the stencil on and ran the machine. Black and solid, no shading, because shading was for people with money to waste. He was paying by the letter, so the little butterfly at the end was on the house. He thanked me like I'd handed him a medal and went off down Park Street whistling.

Twenty-two years later the Class of '79 held its reunion in a function room above a carvery in Knowle. Name badges, warm lager, a DJ playing Madness at a volume that made the crisps jump. I was only there because Pauline from the year below had seen my name on a flyer for the shop and dared me. Kevin spotted me by the coat rack, pushed up his shirt cuff and grinned. The letters had gone soft and blue at the edges, and the butterfly had almost given up.

"You lied to me, Terry," he said. "Forever's been a lot longer than I bargained for." Then he bought me a pint of bitter, asked whether I still had the old stencil book, and wanted to know if I'd ever be tempted to draw him a new one.