An inked woman with £22,000 worth of tattoos says judgemental ex-boyfriends would not let her meet their parents.
She's had the last laugh though – as she's now a famous model and has married the love of her life.
Mareike Herder, 27, from Frankfurt, Germany, enjoyed a normal, happy upbringing before her fascination with tattoos began.
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However, when she went and lived in Wisconsin, US, for ten months as part of a school exchange programme when she was just 16, she she met many different people with various styles of tattoos.
Since then, she has amassed over 66 inkings, two nose piercings, a piercing on her bottom lip and she has had her ears stretched.
Mareike says her unique can come across as intimidating to both men and women, but her husband – Philipp – has always loved tattoos.
Their shared interest in ink is something they bond over with Mareike recently taking up tattooing Philipp with an array of different tattoos to expand his collection.
Mareike’s own journey with body modification began by having her under tongue pierced at the age of 16 by her friend in a basement. She needed something that could be easily hidden from her mother.
“I have always really liked expressing myself in a different way and liked being able to stand out,” she said.
“By the time I was 23, I had covered almost my whole body.
“I have been getting tattooed for a long time, the shortest tattoo took about an hour and the longest took ten hours. So probably if you had to put all the time together it would tally up to a few weeks."
She added: “I did my first tattoo myself when I was 17 and it was an anchor on my right foot.
“But my first proper tattoo by an artist I got when I was 18 and it was a feather on my right rib.
“It is now covered with a big bird and it’s part of the wing. I had a slightly different idea of what I thought was cool back then. I blame Tumblr – just joking.
“The last tattoo I did was on my palms and it's a peony which is my favourite flower.
“I’d say the most painful tattoo was blackening out the belly button. That was crazy painful.”
Initially Mareike’s tattoos were not well received by everyone.
“In Germany at the time people associated lots of tattoos with people not really being successful and just having a bad connotation to it,” said Mareike.
“I got a lot of ‘but what will happen when you are old’ from people.
“My parents were more concerned for my health because of the level of ‘trauma' to my skin as I did so many in quite a short time.
“Today people are more clued up on what and how tattoos work.
“My family love my tattoos, even my mum has two now.
“My friends have always been supportive and know that my tattoos are part of who I am. Many have never even known me without them.”
Mareike currently has almost 500,000 followers on Instagram and, after appearing on Germany's Next Top Model, her reach skyrocketed.
“A lot happened for me both on and after I appeared on the show,” she said.
“Lots of people used to message me to say they found it really cool and refreshing to see someone covered in tattoos could be relatable."
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