Sami Sheen’s tattoos are going through a very honest phase. She has around 18 pieces, most of them collected between the ages of 16 and 18, and she has now said she wants nearly all of them gone. Her tattoo tour wasn’t a polished reveal of perfect work. It was more like a tour of decisions she made young, some with her cousin practising, some copied from Pinterest, and some that simply seemed like a good idea at the time.
That makes the collection more interesting than a standard celebrity ink list. Sami talks openly about thick lines, awkward placements, tattoos she still likes, and pieces she’d rather hide. She has also said the removal process could take about two years. The whole thing is a mix of regret, humour, and a pretty understandable wish to feel comfortable in her own skin again.
She isn’t pretending every tattoo has a perfect story. That’s the point. These pieces show what happens when someone starts getting ink before they’ve really settled into their style.
The first tattoos came when Sami was sixteen
Sami has said her first tattoos arrived when she was 16. One of the early designs was a butterfly with dominoes, meant to represent the butterfly effect. She also got a teddy bear holding a flower. Looking back, she wasn’t impressed with how the lines turned out. She has joked about the thickness and the way some of the work sits on her arm.
There’s nothing unusual about that start. A lot of people get their first tattoo because they like an image, not because they have spent years thinking about how it will age. Sami’s difference is that her early choices were documented and later shown to millions of people. The internet gets to see the design, the regret, and the decision to move on.
Some of the first pieces came from her cousin, who was practising tattooing. That explains why a few designs have the rougher look Sami now talks about. It also helps explain why she has such mixed feelings. The tattoos were part of being young and experimenting, but they weren’t all made by artists with the same level of experience.
Her back wings are the tattoo she may keep
The biggest design in Sami’s collection is the butterfly wing tattoo across her upper back. It stretches out from the spine toward both shoulder blades and is much more dramatic than the small arm pieces. She has described the tattoo as extremely painful, which is one reason she isn’t rushing to remove it.
Although Sami has said she wants every tattoo removed, the wings are the one design she has sounded less certain about. Removing a large, dark back piece would take time, money, and a lot of uncomfortable sessions. There’s also a difference between disliking a small crooked tattoo and looking at a major piece that has become part of your whole silhouette.
The wings change how the collection reads. Without them, the tattoos would mostly look like scattered small designs. With them, there’s a clear centrepiece. It’s the sort of tattoo that shows up in red-carpet photos and turns around when she wears an open-back outfit.
The disco ball covered a mole and carried a phrase
One of the more unusual tattoos is a disco ball on her arm. Sami explained that it originally covered a mole, and the design was connected to the phrase “Food for the soul.” It’s a good example of how a tattoo can start with a practical reason and then pick up an extra meaning around it.
The disco ball also has a completely different energy from the wings. It’s lighter, more playful, and a little bit kitschy. That contrast is all over Sami’s collection. She has sentimental pieces, funny pieces, impulsive pieces, and designs that are difficult to group together unless you know the story behind them.
She has been candid about the fact that some work looks better in her memory than it does on her arm. That doesn’t make the design worthless. It just means the tattoo belongs to a specific stage of her life, and she’s now looking at it with a different eye.
Her arm has cherubs, a cow, a boot and a rainbow
Sami’s tattoo tour included a long run through the smaller designs on her arms. There’s a cherub smoking a joint while holding a crooked wine glass, which she has called one of her worst tattoos. She also has a cow outline with a heart on its forehead, a cowboy boot, fairy imagery, and other small drawings that were chosen at different points.
A rainbow connects to her first Pride parade. That piece was done after she turned 18 and came from a more deliberate period of tattooing. It sits alongside older work that she sees as amateurish, so the arm becomes a timeline. You can look at one section and see a quick teenage decision, then another that came from a more considered memory.
She has also shown a line of text reading “We accept the love we think we deserve,” a quote associated with The Perks of Being a Wallflower. There are small numbers and symbols mixed in with the larger pieces. None of it forms a perfectly planned sleeve, but that messy quality is part of what she’s showing people.
Some tattoos are tied to people and old memories
Not every tattoo in Sami’s collection came from a random image search. She has a photo-realistic portrait of her late dog, which gives the collection a more emotional centre. She has also mentioned a matching horseshoe connected to a former friend. That piece now feels awkward, but it still explains how tattoos can lock a relationship or a moment in place long after the relationship changes.
There’s a lesson in the difference between those pieces. A tattoo can be technically imperfect and still matter because of who or what it represents. Another tattoo can be beautifully placed and still become something you don’t want anymore. Sami’s removal plan isn’t really about judging every tattoo as good or bad. It’s about deciding which memories she wants to keep physically visible.
The old dog portrait seems to sit on the “meaningful” side of that line, while the matching horseshoe sits on the “please let me forget this phase” side. That split is pretty relatable, especially for anyone who got tattoos before knowing how quickly life could change.
Why Sami wants most of the ink removed
Sami has described feeling severely insecure about her tattoos. She has talked about thick lines, designs she no longer connects with, and the way some pieces make her want to cover her arms. That’s a different conversation from simply saying she is bored of them. She has been clear that the tattoos affect how comfortable she feels in photos and at events.
Laser removal is not a quick reset. Sami has estimated that the process could take around two years, and she knows it may be painful. The butterfly wings in particular would be a major job. She has sounded excited about seeing the unwanted ink fade, but she has also admitted that she dreads what the process will involve.
It’s worth separating tattoo regret from shame. Plenty of people dislike old work without disliking the person they were when they got it. Sami’s early tattoos came from a young person trying things out. Removing them doesn’t make that version of her disappear; it just gives her more control over what she wants people to see now.
Sami Sheen’s tattoo collection is a work in progress
Right now, Sami’s tattoos tell a story about growing up faster than her ink could keep up. The butterfly, teddy bear, cherub, disco ball, rainbow, quote, dog portrait, matching horseshoe, and back wings all belong to different chapters. Some chapters are funny. Some are sentimental. Some are honestly a little embarrassing to her.
The collection isn’t a clean set of matching designs, and that’s why a straightforward inventory works better than trying to make it sound like one carefully planned style. Sami has already made the next decision: she wants a fresh start. Whether she removes every piece or keeps the wings, the process will become another chapter in the tattoo story.
If you’re looking at her ink for ideas, the useful takeaway probably isn’t to copy any single design. It’s to think hard about timing, artist quality, and whether a tattoo still feels like you when the excitement wears off. Sami learned that the difficult way, and she’s been unusually willing to show the rest of us what that looks like.
The most useful thing about Sami’s story is that it leaves room for mixed feelings. She can dislike the thick lines and still remember why a tattoo seemed exciting at sixteen. She can want a cleaner arm and still feel attached to the dog portrait or the rainbow. That isn’t inconsistency. It’s what happens when the person changes but the ink stays exactly where it was.
Watch a related Sami Sheen profile
There doesn’t appear to be a dedicated YouTube upload of Sami’s full tattoo tour, so this related profile clip is included instead.