For many of us, achieving a nice glow to our skin is enough to brighten our idea of what our skin should look like—but recently we’ve noticed a trend toward skin as a canvas being inked into mainstream culture.

While it was once considered taboo to tattoo, a recent poll reveals that 1 in 5 American adults have tattoos—and that 40 percent of millennials now sport ink.

It’s interesting how our attitudes about tattoos have shifted. And whether they’re designed to be ceremonial, spiritual, devotional, magical, humorous, declarative or purely decorative, there’s one thing all tattoos have in common—they show our desire to express our creativity and to memorialize our individual experiences of living in our skin.

Tattoo you—and you, and you, too.

Despite being a part of the human experience for thousands of years and across all cultures, tattoos have seen so much of a resurgence today that if you aren’t inked, you likely know someone who is.

As personal branding statements go, some folks clearly should have spell-checked their ink, and there can be other missteps as well, like when Jennifer Lawrence said, "I should have Googled it before I got it tattooed on my body," to much worse.

Good thing there’s a very healthy business for tattoo fixers who erase our body ink mistakes. 

Skin as a social canvas.

I’ve blogged before about how our skin is a social canvas, painting a picture of our health, income, genetics and values for all to see—and people make serious decisions about who we are and where we belong based on our skin’s appearance.

Tattoo anthropologist Lars Krutak has spent years researching and documenting the spiritual meaning of tattoos among many indigenous peoples.

He suggests that we should view some of these individuals as "living world heritage sites.”

I’m not sure that everyone who has a tat feels this way, but with or without the ink, each of us should be treating ourselves as if we are valuable.

If you’re gonna show it, make sure you glow it, with well cared-for, healthy skin.

Our tattoos and body art, in all their beauty, need good skin care, but tattoos aren’t the only things that leave their mark on our skin.

Inked or not, our skin also illustrates our habits in caring for our bodies with the passage of time. Even as aging and the sun are doing their damage, our skin is naturally losing its ability to retain moisture over time.

We all want youthful skin—but nothing contributes more to the aging process than simple neglect.

Failure to moisturize can accelerate the effects of natural aging, because the dermis is losing its elasticity over time. That’s why I often talk about the need to Take 5—just a few minutes each day to give yourself focused attention by caring for your skin.

Here's the scoop on skincare ingredients that go deep to fortify your skin:

1. Tamanu Oil has been proven in clinical studies to demonstrate wound-healing properties for
2. Avocado Oil contains sterolin, which has been shown to facilitate the softening of skin and reduction of age spots
3. Babassu Oil is one of my Brazilian “go-to” oils, rich in anti-oxidant Vitamin E, with anti-inflammatory and collagen-protecting properties for anti-aging defense

These are just a few of the 15 skin-conditioning oils we’ve sourced for Eu2Be products, with powerful combinations of antioxidants, vitamins and essential fatty acids.

So whether we’ve chosen our lines—or our lines have chosen us by way of aging—taking care of our lines and designs is a vibrant way to celebrate the skin we’re in.

Take good care of your tats and start pinning with us: visit our Skin as a Canvas board on Pinterest for natural skincare, ink and tattoos.

See our natural skincare reviews and customer testimonials... or shop now for Eu2Be's natural skincare products

Shout-out to Mia McDowell for being our friend and splendidly tattooed supermodel.

See our natural skincare reviews and customer testimonials.
Or shop now for Eu2Be's natural skincare products.