The World's Most Expensive Body Art

If you ever happen to win the lottery, fear not. The world of body modification is waiting to satisfy your every adornment whim, be they temporary or permanent. The biggest problem you'll most likely face is deciding what you want to do.

The world's most expensive "tattoo" was really a temporary applique. However 612 half carat diamonds is nothing to gloss over. Shimansky, an exclusive South African diamond and jewelry company, designed the sparkling adornment for their spokesmodel Minki van der Westhuizen in June of 2010. Covering the upper right quadrant of her back, it took eight hours to individually glue each of the diamonds into position to form the floral pattern. The design curled and flowed from the nape of her neck down across her shoulder blade and over her shoulder onto her upper arm. The total cost of the body art was 7.2 million Rand, or about $924,000 US. The company says they are willing to recreate the design or make others for interested clients.

From Dubai comes another trend that is a temporary skin decoration. Offered by a company called Precious Skin, these are temporary tattoos made from real gold and platinum. With gold prices running at over $1,400 US an ounce, a larger back design can easily cost $5,000 or more. Precious Skin is hoping that the gold applications will become a trendy replacement for the usual henna designs worn for weddings and other special occasions.

If such temporary forms of body modification don't appeal to you, and you just don't know what else you might do with that pile of lottery winnings that you are sitting on, you can always go for a full body transformation. With a mix of tattooing, piercing, plastic surgery, implants and more, you can become whatever it is that you've always envisioned. No one knows for sure how much the people who commit to full body transformation pay for all their procedures. Many of them don't even know themselves, and if they do, they tend to keep that information private.