Turns out, I'm a massive wuss. How will I cope with actual needles in my flesh? And what if I don't like the placement? Or change my mind?

The solution is... semi-permanent tattoos. I found Canadian company InkBox do these amazing, realistic, tattoos which bond to your epidermis for a couple of weeks. They're a high-tech version of those temporary tattoos you got free in a cereal box.

Here's how it works. Moisturise your skin and exfoliate it with the included wipe. Here is my pasty arm:

Peel the backing off the sticker and smooth it onto the skin. Like this:

Leave it for an hour - keeping the skin as still as possible - then peel it off. At this point, it looks a little green and faded. If I'm honest, a little underwhelming.

Go to sleep - wearing some clothing which covers the tattoo, to prevent it from transferring to another body part.

The next morning - this is what it looked like:

Nice! It looks like a real tattoo! It got darker after a few days. Here's an extreme close-up.

~Time Passes~

After 11 days, the tattoo had started to fade a bit

From a distance it still looks OK, but up close it is easy to see some of the ink has worn off.

It didn't hurt, even peeling the sticker off was painless.

Cost

I paid £40 for four tattoos. That also included shipping from Canadaland. I think that's pretty reasonable. They have loads of designs available - or you can upload your own designs.

It's a great way to test out a design or placement. They're fun and decorative - with none of the commitment of getting inked.

Readers of my blog get a 20% discount at InkBox.