The Ed Hardy Love Kills Slowly Design Explained
The Love Kills Slowly tattoo design by Ed Hardy features a stylized skull wearing a rose in its mouth, usually paired with flowing script and ornamental details like daggers, banners, or tribal patterns. It became one of his most recognizable pieces during the mid-2000s tattoo boom. The skull represents mortality, the rose represents love or life, and the phrase ties them together into a straightforward memento mori message. I first saw this design covered in flash sheets at a shop in downtown LA back in 2004, and it was everywhere after that. Ed Hardy's style pulls heavily from Japanese traditional tattooing, American traditional, and tribal aesthetics. The Love Kills Slowly piece typically combines those influences into something that reads as both decorative and symbolic. The skull is rendered with shading that gives it volume, the rose has petals layered to show depth, and the script wraps around the composition in a way that directs the eye across the piece. On skin, it usually sits well on larger canvases like the chest, back, or upper arm because the details are dense and benefit from space. One thing beginners miss: this isn't a flat sticker design. The shading and line weight vary across the piece, and if you're commissioning it or referencing it for a tattoo, the artist needs to adapt the proportions to your body's shape. A friend of mine got a version that looked perfect in a magazine but ended up looking stretched and muddy on his forearm. He couldn't cover it without going full sleeve, so he just had a different artist layer a traditional eagle over the existing work. Didn't look terrible, but it cost him a second session and another few hundred dollars.
Getting the Ed Hardy Love Kills Slowly Tattoo
There are a few routes people take with this design. Some go directly to a shop that still carries Ed Hardy original flash or licensed reproductions. Others find reference images online and work with a local artist to create their own version. Both approaches have trade-offs. Original Ed Hardy flash or licensed work: This is the most authentic path. Ed Hardy passed away in 2024, and his studio in Honolulu continues to offer original designs and flash. You can book a consultation through their official site. The wait time runs anywhere from three to eight months depending on demand, and pricing for a full-color piece of this complexity typically falls between $800 and $2,000 or more. The upside is you're getting the actual design intent, correct color palette, and proper sizing guidance from someone who knows the work intimately. Custom version from a local artist: This is where most people end up. Find reference images, pick an artist whose style matches what you want, and share them. Be specific about placement and size. A lot of artists will do their own interpretation, which can actually work in your favor if the original feels too rigid or commercial to you. The downside is that color accuracy and line quality depend entirely on the artist's skill level, and you won't have the Ed Hardy name attached to the final result.
Aftercare and Longevity
This design uses heavy blackwork and saturated color, usually red and green for the rose. Black ink holds up well over time, but the red in roses tends to fade faster than other colors, especially if you're not diligent about sun protection. I've seen tattoos like this look great at two years old and then the rose petals lose most of their vibrancy by year five because the owner didn't use SPF on the area. Standard aftercare applies: keep it clean, moisturized, and out of direct sunlight during healing. Don't pick scabs. Expect the piece to look slightly blurry or soft around the edges for the first month as it settles, which is normal. Touch-ups on the red elements are common after a year or two, and that's not a failure on anyone's part, just how pigment behaves in skin.
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Where to Find Reference Images or the Original Design
The official Ed Hardy website at edhardy.com has a gallery section with archived flash sheets and current shop offerings. There are also licensed reproductions sold through their merchandise store if you're looking for prints or temporary versions. For tattoo references, sites like Pinterest and Instagram have thousands of user-uploaded photos of completed pieces, which can help you see how the design ages on different skin tones and body types. Just be careful not to treat any reference photo as the final product — lighting, editing, and individual healing all affect how it looks in practice.
