What Paris Jackson and Doja Cat’s latest red carpet looks say about tattoos today

While 25-year-old Paris Jackson enlisted a makeup team to expertly camouflage her body art on Sunday, Doja Cat ran face-first into the world of temporary tattoos.

Tattoos are for life. Unless you buy a heavy duty concealer, as demonstrated by 25-year-old Paris Jackson on Sunday. The model and actor had all 80 of her tattoos expertly covered for the 66th annual Grammy awards, a process that only took her team of two makeup artists two hours in total. In a time lapse video posted to Instagram, Jackson’s skin is painted, brushed and sprayed a convincing ivory color. Out on the red carpet, her body — once a doodle-pad of colored ink and black lines — was a striking blank canvas, emphasized by a slinky, asymmetrical cut-out gown by Celine. While Jackson’s transformation was a savvy collaboration with makeup brand CoverFx, temporary tattoo camouflage has snowballed as an essential celebrity makeup technique. In South Korea, tattoos exist in a legal gray area — meaning K-Pop idols often avoid the social stigma by using bandages or makeup to hide any for broadcast performances. While shooting the Disney+ series “The Bear,” Jeremy Allen White required extensive tattoo coverage (and temporary tattoo re-application) that would withstand filming for hours in a hot kitchen. Similarly, for the 2022 film “My Policeman,” Harry Styles’ distinctive ink was airbrushed to oblivion — an undertaking that took two hours and required Styles to wear a gas mask in the makeup chair. “I’d look at myself with no tattoos and be like, ‘look at this boring *ss body,’” he told Teen Vogue. But the ability to opt out of permanent body art, even just for one night, seems to appeal to some in the limelight. In 2014, Amber Rose made headlines when she attended the Grammys in a decidedly stripped-back look. She wore a gold, art-deco sequinned Naeem Khan gown, her two tattoo sleeves completely erased — their blankness accentuated by a sprinkling of body glitter. On Saturday, Lana del Rey arrived at the pre-Grammy Gala with a couple of barely-there tatts seemingly peaking through a layer of makeup. Rey’s romantic black Vivienne Westwood dress perfectly framed her décolletage, as well as two faded collar bone script tattoos.