Sure, diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but the emerald is a handy rock to have in your tattoo collection.
Emerald tattoos are increasingly popular designs for their vibrant color and relationship with good health, wealth, truth, and wisdom
In antiquity, the emerald was said to be the gemstone of the Greek goddess Venus, whose realm was love, beauty, desire, and prosperity. The gemstone was also linked to intuition, truth, and foretelling.
In contemporary tattooing, the emerald has great aesthetic qualities borne from its lurid green color and the stone’s multifaceted and/or polished beauty.
While primarily a choice of female collectors, the emerald also works as a unisex tattoo choice.
The following collection of the 23 best emerald tattoo ideas showcase a range of design styles and placements that you can adapt to create a tattoo of your own.
1. Intricate Tattoo Ideas
2. Heart Shaped Designs
3. Crystal Tattoo Ideas
4. Small Tattoo Ideas
5. Tattoos for the Wrist
What do emerald tattoos mean?
Emerald tattoos are increasing in popularity due to their vibrant color and relationship with good health, wealth, truth, and wisdom. The stone also has links to intuition and foretelling.
Emerald tattoo ideas are also escalating because of an increase in tattoo artist’s skills, and the increasing innovation for creative designs.
In the past, one might choose a diamond tattoo, but now any precious gem can be etched with grace and beauty.
What type of emerald tattoo can I get?
Emerald tattoos come primarily in three forms: crystal versions, multi-faceted jewels, and polished stones.
The crystal versions are elemental in character and style, while the polished emerald tattoos look smooth and sleek – which makes them a natural choice for jewelry tattoos.
The multi-faceted gemstone is the most complex and highly detailed version of the emerald, they are depicted in heart tattoo shapes, delicate lace style filigree designs bedecked with elegant linework, or simple colorful pieces that focus on different colors within the angles to create brilliant color.
Where can I place my emerald tattoo?
The simpler emerald tattoos can be placed anywhere, as singular gemstones can be found on the wrist, arms, chest, or back.
More elaborate, decorative pieces need larger areas to be shown off. You’ll find plenty of half sleeve arm pieces, larger back tattoos, and decorative tattoos for the thigh and lower leg prominent, especially as sexier decorative designs.
How much do emerald tattoos cost?
A small-sized emerald tattoo in simple green ink made to look like a crystal or polished is on the cheaper end of the spectrum and may cost as little as $250-300 for less than two hours of work.
Multi-faceted emerald designs are more complex, and no matter the size will take time and great detail to complete between the color and linework.
An experienced professional will charge around $200 per hour for a small piece that may take 3-4 hours.
Large-scale half sleeves and filigree pieces should take a minimum of 4-5 hours and will cost more to complete if there’s a lot of painstaking linework.