The rose is the single most popular tattoo design among men and women alike. This flower, which is classically used to symbolize romantic love, has become an integral part of tattoo culture and tattoo design. However, there is actually a great deal more to the rose tattoo than you might first expect. While of course rose tattoos nearly always indicate a level of affection and deep emotion, the various types of emotion and the various indications of the level of affection and the type of affinity one feels can be discerned in great detail by examining the rose tattoo design itself. If you are considering getting a rose tattoo design of your own, make that beautiful rose tattoo design highly indicative of exactly how and what you feel by factoring in the many layers of meaning that a rose tattoo design can hold.
In real life, some roses have thorns and some are bred without them. Of course, as the famous rock song, Every Rose Has Its Thorns can attest, just because the thorns are not visible does not mean they are not there. However, when you get a rose tattoo design, the decision to include thorns will say a lot about why you got the tattoo and the emotions that are behind your rose tattoo design. A rose tattoo that includes a rose with thorns indicates that beauty requires sacrifice, and love requires caution. Just as a beautiful rose can draw blood if it is not handled carefully, a beautiful love can break a heart or wound the one who loves if they do not handle their emotions and the relationship carefully. Even if you do love judiciously (which is hard to do anyway), you still can end up suffering when you ultimately lose the one you love at least temporarily to death or physical separation. Rose tattoos that have thorns symbolize love, but they also serve as a warning that love is not all beauty and happiness, but also comes with pain.
Rose tattoos without thorns tend to be more focused on idealized, romantic love. When you get a rose without thorns, you are asserting your belief that love is pure and that in the end, love conquers all and is worth everything. Some people even get rose tattoos without thorns to indicate that their love or their relationship is literally perfect and that they believe that the beauty of their love will not bring them or their beloved pain. Thornless rose tattoos also are used to indicate love at first sight, and generally focus on the romantic side of love that is rosy, pink and happy. They also can be used to indicate pure love, such as love for ones first sweetheart or even ones children. Either type of rose, thorny or thornless, can be an individual tattoo design or can be used as decoration for a larger tattoo, such as a memorial tattoo or a picture tattoo of someone that you love.
The colors of rose tattoos also play an important part in the symbolism of the tattoo. Traditionally, a red rose means love, end of story. However, that is really just the beginning. While red roses are probably the most common colored rose tattoo, there are many other colors of rose tattoo design just as there are many other colors of roses. Red roses indicate romantic love and can also be used to indicate lustful feelings or physical affection for someone.
Yellow roses are often used to symbolize joy, and are often used to accent images related to one's children, particularly babies, or accomplishments. Yellow roses are also sometimes used to indicate religious joy, although this is more unusual since white roses are generally symbolic of pure love, platonic love and spiritual love and devotion.
White roses also are used to indicate virginity, and often adorn tattoo images of the Virgin Mary and other female saint tattoos. Accents of red or pink on a white rose tattoo can indicate the blossoming of a different kind of love out of a friendship, and, more practically, create greater depth in the rose tattoo.
Black rose tattoos are also extremely popular. These mildly macabre rose tattoos are popular with people who enjoy goth tattoos and also with people who have been burned by love or who have given up on love. Even if they have not given up on all love, a black rose tattoo can symbolize the death of a relationship or an unwillingness to pursue a romantic goal any farther.
Although not entirely identical to a black rose tattoo, grayscale rose tattoos are extremely popular. However, in this instance, the color is slightly less symbolic since many people just really like grayscale tattoos and prefer them to colored ones. Grayscale roses are also popular in memorial tattoos, and many people feel that they are more realistic looking than color rose tattoos.
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