When adornment signaling constitutes negative employability signaling.

From Tat will tell: Tattoos and time preferences by Bradley J. Ruffle and Anne E. Wilson.  From the Abstract.

Survey and experimental evidence documents discrimination against tattooed individuals in the labor market and in commercial transactions. Thus, individuals’ decision to get tattooed may reflect short-sighted time preferences. We show that, according to numerous measures, those with tattoos, especially visible ones, are more short-sighted and impulsive than the non-tattooed. Almost nothing mitigates these results, neither the motive for the tattoo, the time contemplated before getting tattooed nor the time elapsed since the last tattoo. Even the expressed intention to get a(nother) tattoo predicts increased short-sightedness and helps establish the direction of causality between tattoos and short-sightedness.

Interesting. I have long assumed that tattoos are an unintended signal to employers of multiple undesirable employee traits such as high time discounting, risk taking, poor self-control, etc.