Exposing what's in tattoo ink:
From life-like faces to elaborate nature scenes, tattoos are a true art form. Although people have decorated their bodies for millennia for ceremonial and religious reasons, many people today adorn themselves with these images as a form of self-expression. But the inks used for tattoos are unregulated in the U.S., resulting in products whose components are largely a mystery. Now, researchers have analyzed almost 100 inks and report that even when these products include an ingredient label, the lists often aren't accurate. The team also detected small particles that could be harmful to cells.
[...] Swierk and undergraduates in his laboratory interviewed tattoo artists to see what they knew about the inks they use on their customers. The artists could quickly identify a brand they preferred, but they didn't know much about its contents. "Surprisingly, no dye shop makes pigment specific for tattoo ink," Swierk explains. "Big companies manufacture pigments for everything, such as paint and textiles. These same pigments are used in tattoo inks." He also notes that tattoo artists must be licensed in the locales where they operate for safety reasons, yet no federal or local agency regulates the contents of the inks themselves.
[...] "Every time we looked at one of the inks, we found something that gave me pause," Swierk says. "For example, 23 of 56 different inks analyzed to date suggest an azo-containing dye is present." Although many azo pigments do not cause health concerns when they are chemically intact, bacteria or ultraviolet light can degrade them into another nitrogen-based compound that is a potential carcinogen, according to the Joint Research Centre, which provides independent scientific advice to the European Union.
In addition, the team has analyzed 16 inks using electron microscopy, and about half contained particles smaller than 100 nm. "That's a concerning size range," says Swierk. "Particles of this size can get through the cell membrane and potentially cause harm."
After the researchers run a few more tests and have the data peer reviewed, they will add the information to their website "What's in My Ink?" "With these data, we want consumers and artists to make informed decisions and understand how accurate the provided information is," says Swierk.
(Score: 5, Funny) by drussell on Friday September 02 2022, @12:33AM
(Score: 3, Touché) by soylentnewsfan1 on Friday September 02 2022, @12:45AM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2022, @06:46AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 02 2022, @01:28PM
Wrong show, I figure everyone and their dog gets laid in Californication.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday September 02 2022, @01:34AM (7 children)
I thought I heard something many years ago about tattoos being potentially carcinogenic but don't remember finding anything much about it when I searched more recently. This study adds a little bit of evidence to that theory. Not that it's really of much interest to me--I don't like the way any tattoos look.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RS3 on Friday September 02 2022, @04:23AM (4 children)
I've seen some that were beautiful works of art, but why do something so permanent? Are people that driven to follow fads and "keep up with the Jones"?
Anyway, there are a few fairly rare cases where an MRI interacts with a tattoo and burns the person. They should do flame tattoos with iron-bearing ink. Oh the irony, (and oh the humanity!)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 02 2022, @02:41PM (3 children)
I got a couple tattoos in my twenties on my shoulder blade and upper thigh. One was a haiku and the other a dictum from the dao de jing. Both encapsulate core tenets of my beliefs. That is why I got them, though they look cool, too. Neither is visible when clothed, because they are for me and not for public display.
People get tattoos for many reasons. My personal take is that when it comes to body art, less is more. That said, I once struck up a conversation with a guy in the Seoul airport on a long layover who was on his way back from hanging out with natives on a small island in the South Pacific for two and a half years. They had grown so fond of him they tattoo'ed their creation myth over most of his body. It looked pretty damn cool. If you've ever seen Maori body tattoos it was that sort of thing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday September 02 2022, @04:14PM (2 children)
Yours sound pretty cool. Size and location matter, and I admit some gender bias.
I was thinking more of young attractive women who have huge tattoos, often many of them, covering 30 - 70% of their skin. I just don't find it attractive, even if the art in and of itself is really good. The two just seem incongruous, to me anyway. And they may be cool in one's cultural / affinity group, but the fad may fade, and the tattoo will too, but not much, and they're so permanent. I know there are procedures to remove them, but it's a long, slow, sometimes painful process, and they'll likely always leave something that might be even less attractive.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday September 02 2022, @04:17PM
I meant to add: hennas [wikipedia.org] are cool though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Saturday September 03 2022, @02:11AM
...permanent reminders of a temporary feeling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H2O4AX3EpI [youtube.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by KritonK on Friday September 02 2022, @07:47AM (1 child)
Indeed. I hate that moldy-looking gray-green, which seems to be the basic color for tattoos.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 02 2022, @02:44PM
Tattoos fade with time, but mine are nearly as vivid as when I got them thirty years ago. Neither sees sunlight much, so that might be a factor.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday September 02 2022, @01:41AM (1 child)
As long as my cellular antenna tattoo improves the 5G reception for my vaccines, so my patch Tuesday mind control updates come in faster, I'm good with it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 02 2022, @02:53PM
You joke, but I would get such a tattoo if it meant I could never be rendered incommunicado. I'd get it done in invisible ink or ink that matched my skin color, though, such that nobody could tell I had it. I could see having a tattoo that gave me real-time diagnostics on my health, too. Blood sugar, heart rate, EKG, electrolyte levels, etc. would take a lot of the guess work out of "I feel funny," and would be very useful if I ever had a medical emergency.
Naturally I would have to have 100% control and transparency over the software and hardware involved.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rich on Friday September 02 2022, @10:17AM (2 children)
The report forgets to mention that the EU has not too long ago outlawed a good number of tattoo colours, and a search for replacements is going on. I know someone who had only monochome work done since. As far as I understood it, the new colour palette isn't complete yet, and it's somewhat unknown how durable the new pigments are.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday September 02 2022, @10:11PM
As long as they have cyan, magenta, yellow and black it's all good. Ha-ha, only serious. Followed by, "tattoo printers are putting artists out of work" and/or "HP tattoo guns look like a bargain until you have to buy the ink".
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rich on Saturday September 03 2022, @12:21AM
So, at the local metal bar downtown earlier, I had the chance to talk to a (reputable) tattoo artist who's a regular there. She told me that all the German made inks have been withdrawn and that for reasons beyond her understanding, suddenly American inks have the necessary paperwork (which they didn't have before the big changes). She considered the American inks as lesser in colour quality, but says she got less feedback of allergic reactions. So, right now, the palette is mostly useful, but comes at three times the price.
However, she says, by years end, the blue/cyan tones will be withdrawn (azo?!), leaving a huge gap in the palette. As I understood it, the German manufacturers are still trying to get something to market, but aren't there yet. I was unclear to me if that involves blue/cyan as well.
Finally, she says, there's been a shift of liability. Before, in case of problems, the entity to sue were the colour manufacturers, now it's the performing studio. It seems the artists (or at least some) don't really understand what's going on behind the scenes, or it is not communicated to them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sonamchauhan on Saturday September 03 2022, @01:01PM
A decade or two ago, I recall a talk back radio segment. The host was interviewing a tattoo artist. A surgeon called in, arguing tattoos were dangerous. He found the when operating on tattooed patients, the lymph nodes nearest the tattooed areas would be black. Basically, the body recognises the tattoo ink as foreign and dangerous and begins to break up the tattoo. With nowhere to go, the ink is sequestered in the lymph nodes.