Lucy Hale’s tattoos can be easy to overlook at first. Most are fine-line pieces along her neck, ribs, back, arms and ankle, so they may show for a moment in a red-carpet photo and disappear beneath a costume. Look closer and there’s a thoughtful collection: some pieces honor family, some play off her name, and others mark a particular moment.
Her own interviews and published tattoo roundups document a growing group of small designs, including a bow, a light-themed rib tattoo, a sun shared with her sister, an evil eye, a lightbulb, friendship writing and several matching pieces. This guide focuses on the designs with the clearest stories, distinguishing what’s confirmed from what’s simply visible in photos. If you like fine-line work, Hale’s collection shows how a personal idea can stay small without feeling plain.
Lucy Hale’s bow neck tattoo
Hale’s bow is one of her best-known tattoos, placed high on the back of her neck. The outline is light rather than heavy, with two loops and trailing ribbons that read clearly despite the small size. PopSugar’s tattoo roundup says it was her first, done by Dr. Woo at Hollywood’s Shamrock Social Club in 2012.
The story has the same playful edge as the design. Hale has said she wanted something rebellious and a little crazy after a breakup. A tiny bow works well for that kind of moment: it looks sweet at first, but getting it was about making a choice for herself. It also previews a style she would return to—fine lines, a compact shape and a placement she can keep private when she wants.
The neck is an interesting spot for a small tattoo. There’s enough room for a simple shape to breathe without needing a large shaded composition. The clean outline and placement do most of the work.
Lucy Hale’s sun tattoo with her sister
Hale and her sister got matching sun tattoos in memory of their grandmother. Hale explained the meaning in an interview, making it one of the clearest family stories attached to her ink. The design is small and uncomplicated, so the feeling behind it comes through without a detailed illustration.
Matching tattoos don’t need to be elaborate to matter. A simple sun is recognizable to everyone, while its private meaning belongs to the people who chose it. Hale’s collection often works that way: light visual language, with a personal story giving the mark weight.
Published photos place the sun around her back and side. Those areas can be covered or shown without much effort, which gives a shared family tattoo some flexibility. It can stay a quiet keepsake instead of becoming a constant part of her public look.
The evil eye near her ankle
Hale’s evil eye sits near the back of her right ankle. It’s tiny, but the eye shape gives it more detail than a single word or line. Coverage links it to Dr. Woo, who has done several of her fine-line pieces. It shows up in the kind of full-body street photo where an ankle tattoo is easy to miss.
The ankle gives a small tattoo a neat, defined space, though shoes, socks and movement can make fine detail harder to see. Hale’s photo shows why a clear silhouette helps: even from a distance, the mark reads as an eye rather than a dot.
It also brings another mood to the collection. The bow and sun feel soft and personal; the evil eye suggests protection, adding a little edge without needing a large blackwork design. It’s a good example of how a familiar symbol can feel subtle.
Lucy Hale’s lightbulb and light theme
Hale has described the lightbulb on the back of her left arm, above the elbow, as one of her most meaningful tattoos. It connects to the word “light” on her ribcage, a reference to the Latin meaning of Lucy. The link is straightforward: her name is associated with light, and the bulb turns the idea into an image. The word and picture don’t have to be visible at once for the theme to work.
The upper-arm placement gives the bulb more room than her finger or ankle pieces. It can disappear beneath a sleeve, but there’s enough space for the outline and filament to remain recognizable. In a 2017 PeopleTV interview, Hale explained the personal connection between the design and her name, making this one of the best-documented meanings in the collection.
There’s a useful design idea here: repeat a theme without using the same artwork twice. A word and an image can share a meaning yet remain separate tattoos. That can make a small collection feel connected without making it look like a matching set.
The “Love Her but Leave Her Wild” friendship tattoo
Hale and her best friend Annie Leonard share tattoos of the Atticus quote “Love Her but Leave Her Wild.” Reports say they got the lettering in September 2018 from Los Angeles artist Daniel Winter. It’s longer than most of Hale’s tiny designs, showing that she’ll make room for writing when the words matter.
Friendship lettering can get crowded, especially in delicate script on an arm. Photos of Hale’s tattoo show why spacing and a steady hand matter: the phrase needs to stay light enough to fit her style while remaining clear enough to read.
The quote fits Hale’s wider approach to tattoos. Her collection isn’t built around one bold visual style; it’s a set of reminders about family, friendship, identity and moments she wants to keep. That’s more useful than copying the exact phrase. A matching tattoo works best when it already means something to both people before it reaches the skin.
Other small pieces in Lucy Hale’s collection
Tattoo galleries and entertainment coverage document several more small pieces. Hale and her Pretty Little Liars castmates got matching “A” tattoos on the fingers they used to shush, a nod to the show’s central mystery. She also has “Courage, dear heart” beneath her breast, from C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and “Catch the foxes for us” from Song of Solomon on her ribcage.
Another tattoo is an elephant connected to a 2018 trip to Cambodia with the charity Ripple Effect. Coverage says Hale visited Bayoon Tattoo while she was there and got the design locally. There’s also an “I love you” in her grandmother’s handwriting, a matching family tattoo that sits alongside the sun. These pieces show how a tiny design can preserve a trip, a person or a particular chapter.
Some newer tattoos are harder to track in a single photograph, so the count can shift. Celebrity tattoo lists change as new work appears, while clothing or makeup can hide older designs. What stays consistent is Hale’s preference for small, fine-line images with a reason behind them.
Why her fine-line style works
Across the collection, Hale returns to a few useful choices: compact designs, light linework and placements that give each mark room without making it compete with the next. That’s how a neck bow, a rib phrase and an ankle symbol can sit together without looking like they belong to different collections.
Meaning comes before decoration in Lucy Hale’s tattoos. That’s the thread connecting them. Her name becomes a word and a lightbulb; a family memory becomes a sun and handwriting; a friendship becomes a line of poetry. Even the bow began as a spontaneous post-breakup decision, but its story gives it more than a pretty outline.
If you’re saving references for a small tattoo of your own, consider the practical details. Fine lettering needs breathing room; tiny symbols need a clean shape; matching tattoos need a meaning that can last even if circumstances change. Most of all, choose a design you can explain without needing a caption. That’s what gives a small tattoo staying power.
One thought on “Lucy Hale Tattoos: The Meaning Behind Her Bow, Light and More Ink”