The 5th Brighton Tattoo Convention is being held this weekend. As part of the convention they are awarding prizes for excellent tattoo work done over the last year. And what prizes!

Eaton Nott, a Brighton design boutique specialising in the bizarre, were commissioned to create a series of unusual awards. They did a marvellous job and the awards are both grotesque and beautiful. Click through to their Facebook gallery to see all of the designs.

Actress & pop star Kelly Osbourne is having two of her tattoos removed. She tweeted from a removal consultation that she was scared by some of the equipment, but having talked of her regrets at having some of her tattoos in the past it seems she’s now ready to try to have them removed.

There are a wide range of tattoo removal techniques, and given that Ms Osbourne can afford to visit the very best of clinics we’re sure she’ll be having laser treatment from expert professionals. Even so, there’s a chance she won’t be able to remove the tattoos completely and may end up with scarring where they are. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen and she gets the results she wants.

Queried by fans about why she wanted to get rid of some of her tattoos, she replied “would you want tinkerbell above your ass crack? As of right now I’m only getting rid of 2 stupid ones!”

To prevent tattoo regret, we strongly recommend a “try before you etch” policy – use some temporary designs to see what a tattoo will look like on you for a while before getting something you might want to remove later. It doesn’t mean your taste won’t change in the future, it’s just to help you be sure about your decision and not get a design you know you’ll feel stuck with.

Strange news in from Brazil, it appears that some addicts are exchanging space on their bodies for crack cocaine. For the cost of having a tattoo, they get a free hit.

Police in Bahia have noticed almost 70 people in their small town are now branded with the word ‘Freudenthal’, an unique word in Brazilian which they have tracked back to Mario Freudenthal, who is wanted in relation to drug trafficking. The word has also been found on the bodies of dead people believed to be drug addicts.

Lt. Jose Mello thinks the suspect must be an “egotistical psychotic” for wanting the tattoos applied. One wonders if it’s an extension of the tagging graffiti artists have long used to try to claim territory from each other.

It’s fair to say the Freudenthal is not a tattoo design we’re expecting to stock, and hopefully the Brazilian police will soon bring the mad scheme to a halt.

Sparked by Tina Beznec’s auction allowing the winner to tattoo anything (up to 9cm x 9cm) on her bum on New Zealand auction site Trade Me, there are now a spate of copycats on the site, offering areas for tattooing including more buttocks, a breast, legs, a neck, backs, and even a husband and wife combos.

Tina’s original auction, now set to bring in more than NZ$12,000, will be split so 20% of the money goes to the winner’s choice of charity, who will also receive a photo of Tina’s derrière after their chosen design has been inked in to it. The auction finishes tomorrow on 20th Jan at 5pm (New Zealand time) if you want to get a bid in.

The coverage of Tina’s auction has inspired a spate of others to join in, most of them at least in part for a good cause. You can have your choice of tattoos put on a husband & wife’s thighs, with 60% going to either cancer or epilepsy charities, one on a man’s throat with 20% going to a Women’s Refuge, and a man who is offering his whole bottom and his back in separate auctions to help pay for his child’s cancer treatment.

We wish all the auctioneers the best with their fundraising efforts, and hope they’re happy with the designs they get.

If you’re thinking of getting a tattoo in 2012 – say maybe something patriotic for the Olympics, or a little star or two to add a little glamour – please, please use a removable one to work out you’re happy with it.

You can order a few packs from us and make sure you’re completely happy with the placement, type of tattoo, and the reaction from other people (if it’s normally visible), before getting yourself a permanent one. We have thousands of tattoo designs, so there’s bound to be something you like to try out.

A very happy Christmas to all of our friends on the internet!

We hope you’re having a good day and if you’re reading this while a little sozzled, it’s much better to decide to get one of our tattoos than a permanent one, with ours you can always change your mind when you sober up. Plus, how many permanent tattoos can you get delivered to your door? Not a lot!

Hi, anything you order from now on will arrive after Christmas. You’ve plenty of time to get in any orders for New Years Eve parties!

Need a slightly naughty stocking filler for your loved one this Christmas? Get them a temporary tattoo or two.

Playing hunt-the-tattoo is a wonderful way to spend an evening after a stressful day of being nice to your family or in-laws. If you have some imagination, it can lead to all sorts of stress-relieving activities.

We recommend the star tattoos for good hunting, as they come in several pretty designs. The cascading stars are especially good for leading your lover in a particular direction. Our temporary designs come off with a little baby oil, which you may find useful for other things too.

If you’d like to order one of our temporary tattoo designs, we can get them to you by Christmas if you order them on or before Tuesday 20th December.

We’ve all had a friend or family member who gets obsessed by the idea of having a tattoo. They love a band and they know they’ll want to commemorate it forever, or there’s a singer they want to copy, or they simply fall in love with a particular design.

A lot of times this leads to arguments, especially if the person in question is young. If they nag enough, will they get their parent’s consent to the tattoo? Does their mother or father think it’s a bad idea and know they’ll go off the design, but only after they’ve got a permanent reminder of their obsession?

If you know someone who’d love a tattoo, but can’t afford it or isn’t allowed to have one, why not get them a temporary tattoo as a present this Christmas?

If you already know what sort of design they’d like, you could buy multiple packs of it. Then they can wear it in the same spot for several weeks and make sure they definitely do want a permanent copy for the rest of their life. You’ll want to get enough so they get past the first few days of people reacting to the tattoo, and in to the phase where they’re living with it past a novelty. Our temporary tattoos last 2-3 days of normal wear, so you shouldn’t need a new one every day.

If you don’t know what they want, choose a few designs, especially more generic ones like star tattoos and tribal designs, and hopefully something you get will hit the mark for them. At least they’ll get a chance to try out some different looks.

With a temporary tattoo, they can try out what it’s like to have a design on their body, how they like it in the mirror, and see people’s reactions to it. If they decide they don’t like a design, or go off the whole idea of having a tattoo when they see what they look like, it’s only a matter of moments to remove one, it’s not like they’d need surgery like a permanent one would. It can help them avoid making a mistake that they’ll have to live with forever, or to choose a design they they love so much they’re sure they want it.

If you’d like to order one of tattoo designs, we can get them to you by Christmas if you order them on or before Tuesday 20th December.

Recently the Duchess of Cornwall received a henna tattoo on an official visit to Tanzania. She was assured the tattoo would only last a couple of days, but nine days later the remnants were still on her hand, making for some embarrassment at official functions.

If you’re thinking of getting a temporary tattoo, whether it’s for a party, to try out a design for a permanent tattoo, or because you don’t want to cause an international incident by refusing, you have to main options:

A henna tattoo soaks special ink in to your skin. These are not permanent, but do last for many days before the skin’s natural replenishment removes all the stained cells. There are various ways to encourage the henna to disperse, if Camilla was reading the various message boards and Facebook posts discussing her problem, she will have seen recommendations of scrubbing the area with toothpaste or baby shampoo. These may help accelerate the removal, or bleach some of the colour out of the ink, but really the key is patience.

As your skin naturally sheds and is replaced, the henna will go with it. Permanent tattoos place the pigment deep under the skin, where it sits in scar tissue and doesn’t get disturbed. The heena ink is on the surface areas, so will disappear in a short time, although not a couple of days; a week or two would be more likely. This wait may not be short enough if you need to be glad handing the great and the good of the aristocracy daily.

If you need a temporary tattoo you can properly control, the answer is to have one applied via a transfer, like the ones we sell. They’re quick to apply, come in a huge number of different designs, and you can remove them whenever you want with a little baby oil. This means Camilla could wear a Christina Aguilera sacred scroll to the graffiti club opening one day, then easily remove it for a breakfast meeting with the Armenian ambassador the next morning. No toothpaste required.