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About Belly Button Tattoos
Belly buttons are one of the most unique physical aspects of our bodies. They’re essentially our only orifice that doesn’t have strong nerve clusters around them (and you could argue that they’re not technically orifices).
Belly buttons can also be a bit private because most people don’t flaunt their midriffs out in the open.
Those features make belly buttons a tattoo destination with tons of potential. However, all that potential will go unrealized if you don’t act upon it. That’s why I’m going to give you some tips on which belly button tattoo designs you should look into.
I’ll cover more than just belly button tattoo ideas. I’ll go over how much you can expect your belly button tattoo to cost, the short history of belly button tattoos, and how you can add layers of meaning to your tattoo.
What Do Belly Button Tattoos Mean And Symbolize?
There hasn’t been a long history of belly button designs with deep lore. There doesn’t seem to be one universal principle that most tattoos in that area communicate.
You could argue that the belly button tattoo meaning is connected to motherhood because of the umbilical cord, there aren’t many popular tattoos that build upon that point.
That being said, it’s still possible for you to get a meaningful belly button design. You can tailor its significance to your life and story by drawing inspiration from your narrative.
Think about recurring symbols in your life. Are there any images that you attach meaning to or that represent larger themes? You can implement them into your belly button tattoo by thinking about how the art’s placement interacts with its theme.
How Much Do Belly Button Tattoos Cost?
It’s common for tattoo artists to charge an hourly rate as a base fee, then increase the price depending on the following factors:
- Size of the tattoo
- How much detail the tattoo requires
- How many different colors do they have to use
- Whether they need to use different types of needles
- Cost of the equipment
- The difficulty of manually administering the tattoo
The last point is a crucial factor when it comes to belly button tattoos because stomachs can be difficult to tattoo.
They don’t contain much bone and have varying ratios of fat and muscle. This can be great for the person receiving the tattoo but can make the task harder on the artist’s end.
You should expect to pay at least $100 for a good quality belly button that’s about the size of the palm of your hand.
34 Best Belly Button Tattoo Designs
I feel that some of the best belly button tattoo designs are ones that have a circular shape. They can curve around the belly button in an aesthetically pleasing way and better conform to your body’s shape.
For example, a tattoo of a sun works great near the belly button. You can either wrap the sun around your belly button for a symmetrical piece or you can place it on either the left or right side for an off-kilter look.
The sun is a good idea because there are many different styles it can take on. A cutesy and simplistic sun can reflect innocence whereas a tribal sun can be connected to your family lineage.
The same can be said for circular objects like compasses. They’re awesome belly button tattoos because they can say so much with such a simple shape. Even a rudimentary compass can speak volumes, but adding more detail personalizes it and makes it your own.
Handwriting is another solid belly button tattoo idea. Of course, you’ll have even more room to play around with this as it’ll be words instead of an image, but the navel and stomach area is a fine place to brandish your life’s motto.
If you do choose a handwritten tattoo then I recommend going for something short and punchy.
The belly button isn’t as good of a location for long pieces of text as your ribcage is, but it’s a prime location for short phrases. Plus, you can curl them around the upper half of your belly button for better proportions.
Mandalas are excellent belly button tattoo design options. They’re perfect for that area of the body because the belly button lies in the center of your horizontal plane. It’s the midpoint of your body.
Designs like mandalas are symmetrical in nature so placing them around your belly button represents harmony between body and art.
Mandalas can sometimes look unbalanced if you have them on your arms or legs, but that’s rarely the case if you get one on your belly button.
You can also use the belly button’s opening as a piece of your tattoo. I’m not talking about crass tattoos of images that wouldn’t clear Google’s child-safety searching settings.
You’d want a design where a hole is a necessary component of the piece. Think about a spider’s web that falls into your belly button, the mouth of a tiger, or the heart in the middle of a black hole.
Simple shapes and signs are also reliable belly button tattoos. This is especially true for geometric pieces that need a flat space. They may be distorted if they’re wrapped around an opposable body part or don’t that frequently contort when in motion.
Thankfully, neither of those happens with the area around the belly button. This makes the belly button an optimal location for larger tattoos that rely on shapes.
My final belly button tattoo idea is technically two in one. You can get two matching pieces on both sides of your belly button. Think about getting images like;
- Matching snakeheads
- Double-digit numbers
- Stars
- Constellations
Essentially, anything that comes in pairs will make a great belly button tattoo. But you don’t have to limit yourself to small, inconsequential pieces. You can go big and still not go home because of how much space is near the belly button.
The belly button is probably the best place for larger tattoos that you would like to actually see. Most people think back tattoos are all the rage, but it’s annoying to have to keep checking the mirror to see if your tattoo exists.
With that in mind, I recommend using your stomach for larger pieces like the following:
- Epic battles
- Spiritual iconography
- Tattoos that run from your collarbone to your stomach
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History Of The Belly Button Tattoo
Tattooing is a practice that’s older than modern human history. Scientists found remains of humans dated to be over 5,200 years old that contained tattoo-like body modifications.
For context, that’s over 1,000 years before the advent of the Ancient Egyptians, history’s oldest form of human civilization.
Scientists did find that Egyptians received tattoos around their abdomen and stomach area as a tribute to the God of Fertility, Bes. it’s safe to assume that some of these tattoos must have come close to the belly button.
Besides that, belly button tattoos have evolved alongside the rest of the art form without much heraldry. They didn’t receive any specific fanfare, which isn’t to say that people don’t like them, but that they were usually held in the same regard as tattoos on other parts of the body.
Which Celebrities Have A Belly Button Tattoo?
It’s surprising that there aren’t that many big-name celebrities with belly button tattoos given the placement’s unique opportunities.
Numerous celebrities have tattoos across their waistline or ones that fall above their navel but there are only a handful who’ve accentuated their belly buttons with tattoos.
The first that pops into mind is WWE Superstar turned Hollywood star, Dave Batista. He formerly had a tribal sun design around his belly button but later added skulls, the numbers 202, and a pair of birds to the design.
CM Punk, another former WWE Superstar in his own right, has a bold belly button tattoo as well. He has the words “STRAIGHT EDGE” sprawled across the top of his stomach, arching around the belly button.
The legendary rapper Tupac Shakur has a similar belly button tattoo although his is slightly less holistic than Punk’s. Shakur has “THUG LIFE” etched across his midsection.
You can’t mention celebrities with tattoos and not mention Justin Bieber. The man’s body is practically the Smithsonian Natural History Museum of tattoos. He actually has made sizeable contributions to his belly button area over the years. It remains one of his most revisited areas.
He started by getting a few cute handwritten messages around his belly button before adding a massive “SON OF GOD” tattoo across his upper stomach.
It was a little much, but Bieber pulled it off. That wasn’t enough for him as the message was later joined by a bald eagle just above his belly button.
Bieber proves that too much is never enough when it comes to belly button tattoos as he finally added angels, cathedral walls, and other religious details to fill in the space on his abdomen.
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