Birth Flower Tattoos: Your Month, Your Flower

A message came in last month that we still think about. It said: my mum's flower and mine, side by side, on my forearm. Not two flowers they both happened to like. Their birth flowers, one for March and one for October, drawn as one small bunch. 🌷

That is the quiet magic of a birth flower tattoo. It carries a date without printing a date, and a person without printing a name. Here is the whole calendar, what each flower is usually taken to mean, and honestly which ones behave well on skin and which ones need a rethink before the needle comes anywhere near you.

Photo: Travel Photographer / StockSnap (CC0)

What a birth flower tattoo actually is

Every month of the year has a flower attached to it, the same way every month has a stone. The list comes mostly from Victorian England, when people sent whole sentences to each other in bouquets, and it stuck around because it is lovely and easy to remember.

For a tattoo it does something a birthstone never can. It is a shape, it is a colour, and it can be drawn as small as a coin or as big as a shoulder. It also gives people who want something meaningful but not literal a beautiful way out. Nobody has to know it is a date unless you tell them.

Your month, your flower

Most months have a main flower and a backup. We have put the main one first, with the meaning that usually travels with it.

• January · Carnation. Devotion and a warm sort of loyalty. Ruffled petals that look wonderful in flat pink or deep red, no shading needed.
• February · Violet. Modesty, honesty, quiet love. Tiny by nature, which makes it one of the easiest months to wear small.
• March · Daffodil. New beginnings and stubborn optimism, because it flowers before the weather agrees. A trumpet and six petals, instantly readable.
• April · Daisy. Innocence and starting fresh. Possibly the friendliest shape in the whole list, and it never becomes unreadable.
• May · Lily of the valley. Sweetness and happiness coming back. Little bells on a curved stem, gorgeous along a wrist or a spine.
• June · Rose. Love, in every version of the word. The most drawn flower on earth, which is exactly why yours should not look like a stock outline.
• July · Larkspur. An open heart and a light spirit. A tall spike of small blooms, brilliant for long narrow spaces like a forearm.
• August · Gladiolus. Strength of character, the kind that does not need to announce itself. Another tall one, so it likes a tall placement.
• September · Aster. Patience and wisdom. A neat star of thin petals, and one of the loveliest flowers to do in purple.
• October · Marigold. Warmth and creativity. Layers of orange and gold, made for colour work rather than fine line.
• November · Chrysanthemum. Friendship and a long life. Big, generous, and honestly a whole tattoo on its own.
• December · Narcissus, the paper white kind. Hope and good wishes. It shares a family with March, so we draw it in white with a paler centre to keep the two apart.

One honest note before you commit. Flower meanings are not the same everywhere. The chrysanthemum is friendship and long life in one country and strictly a funeral flower in another, and marigolds mean something quite specific here in Thailand too. If your flower will be seen by family with a different reading of it, it is worth five minutes of thinking, and we are happy to talk it through.

Which ones behave well on skin

A birth flower is chosen by the calendar, not by how easy it is to tattoo, so some months arrive with homework attached. None of them are impossible. They just want to be drawn the right way.

• Easy at any size. Daisy, violet, daffodil, lily of the valley, aster. Simple silhouettes, clear gaps between the lines, still readable in ten years at 3 centimetres.
• Fine once simplified. Carnation, rose, marigold, chrysanthemum. All of them live in layered petals, so we cut the petal count and keep the shape rather than shrinking every detail.
• Wants room, not shrinking. Larkspur and gladiolus. Both are tall spikes of many small flowers, so give them length. A forearm, a calf, the side of the ribs. Squeezed into a square they lose the very thing that makes them beautiful.

Colour is worth a thought too. Marigold and carnation are colour flowers, and in black line only they can end up looking like a generic bloom. Violets and daisies are perfectly happy either way.

Ways to wear more than one

• A family bunch. One flower per person, tied as a single small bouquet. This is the one we are asked for most, and it grows nicely as the family does.
• Two flowers, one stem. For couples, siblings or a parent and child. Reads as one drawing rather than two tattoos sharing space.
• A matching pair. Each of you takes the other person's birth flower, so the tattoos only make sense together.
• A little wreath. Three or four months arranged in a loose circle, lovely on the shoulder or around an ankle.

If more flowers might join later, tell us on the first day. We will leave the composition open on one side so number four does not have to be squeezed in.

Drawing yours the naive way

This is where our own style earns its keep. Naive tattoos are built from simple shapes, slightly wobbly lines and cheerful flat colour, which suits birth flowers perfectly. A naive marigold is not a botanical study with the detail removed. It is its own drawing, and it stays crisp and readable for years because there was never any fine detail to lose.

We also draw every one from scratch rather than pulling a template, so your March daffodil looks like yours. If you are still deciding, our guide to what different flowers mean is a good place to wander, and if you want something tiny, we wrote about small floral tattoos that still look good later.

Questions we get about birth flower tattoos

What if I do not like my birth flower?

Then take the backup. Most months have two, and nobody is checking. Plenty of people go with a flower that actually grew in their childhood garden instead, and it means more anyway.

How big does one flower need to be?

Around 3 to 5 centimetres is the comfortable range for a single bloom with a stem. A small bouquet of three sits happily around 8 to 10. Send us the spot and we will tell you honestly what fits.

Can I add another month later?

Yes, and it is very common. Say so at the start and we will design the first piece with a door left open, so the next flower joins the arrangement instead of crowding it.

If you would like yours

Tell us your month, or the months of the people you want to carry, and roughly where on the body you are imagining. Send a DM to @naive.flora.tattoo and we will sketch something for you. If you would rather look first, our flash catalogue is full of florals ready to go.

We are on Phahonyothin 32/1 in Sena Nikhom, Chatuchak, open daily from 10:00 to 20:00, from ฿1,500. Come with a month and a rough idea. That is genuinely enough to start. 🌿