Tattoo parlors in the US

As tattoo parlors have proliferated across America, cosmetic procedures have increased with almost identical enthusiasm, producing a correlation that suggests the nation has collectively decided to modify its appearance through every available channel simultaneously. The coefficient is 0.955 across sixteen years, during which Americans have gotten both more inked and more injected with the determination of a population that has opinions about its own surface area. The body, it turns out, is a growth market.

Both are appearance industries that crashed and rebounded in 2020. Tattoo parlors and cosmetic-procedure clinics were ordered closed at the same time, reopened to huge backlogs as people emerged from lockdown with savings and ideas, and set revenue records as a result. The correlation measures the size of the pent-up demand for new skin.

Sixteen years of tattoos and cosmetic procedures rising together is a story about a culture that has decided the body is a canvas and the economy is a paint store. Both industries serve the same desire—to look different, to look better, to look intentional—and both have been normalized by the same media that shows them off. The ink is permanent, the Botox is not, and the market for both keeps growing.