Amazoniac
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This is humiliating, but there was this woman on a dating app that conditioned going out with me only if I got a Hello Kitty tattoo done (she's a tattooalist). At first I thought it was a joke and said to her that I'll do it if she recorded herself leaving her home with a color pallette of different shades of skin and a fluorescent lamp tube that's meant to be broken on anyone's back whose skin differs in two tones in relation to hers and happened to be crossing her path. Anyway, I now have what seems to be a cat that keeps staring at me and it got me thinking about tattoo motivations.
Don't worry about the tattoo, it could be worse:
So..
Who is tattoo? Why is tattoo? Will is tattoo on wealth?
- Tattooing: mind, body and spirit - The inner essence of the art
- Ankhs and anchors: tattoo as an expression of identity - exploring motivation and meaning
- Blackout Tattoos Are Trendy—But Are They Safe?
- Tattoo Pigments Are Observed in the Kupffer Cells of the Liver Indicating Blood-Borne Distribution of Tattoo Ink
- Tattoo ink nanoparticles in skin tissue and fibroblasts
Don't worry about the tattoo, it could be worse:
So..
Who is tattoo? Why is tattoo? Will is tattoo on wealth?
- Tattooing: mind, body and spirit - The inner essence of the art
"According to researcher Shannon Bell (1999), there is a differentiation between people who have tattoos and tattooed people. The people who have tattoos only have one or two; usually personal images strategically placed so as not to be seen. Tattooed people have many tattoos, usually larger and more colorful and placed so they can be seen. She states that they have “crossed the point of no return” (Bell 1999: 56) and have chosen to socialize in the subculture of tattooists and others as heavily tattooed as they are. This action allows them to avoid the reactions of the general population and “fully embrace marginalization” (Bell 1999: 56)."
"According to Bell (1999), American tattooing is unique. Tattoos are images and literal interpretations of things, not surprising because America is a consumer society. Bell states that the meaning of the act of tattooing is “inextricably linked” (p. 54) to the chosen image itself. Any permanent mark on the body signifies a person’s separation from the mainstream of culture, and a tattoo can separate someone from society at large. Separation from society is a large factor in her theory about tattoos and why people get them. She states, “tattooing is a struggle for individualization in a society that is increasingly impersonal” (p. 54). They are a sign of resistance to the impermanent and conservative world of today. She quotes Vaclav Havel as saying that being tattooed is synonymous with “living the truth” (p. 54); your own personal truth."
"Christensen (2000) found many reasons for getting tattoos including “expressing individuality, communicating rebellion, defining group membership, conveying spiritual meaning, or marking milestones such as life or death” (Christensen 2000: 432, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Tattooed career women said that the tattoo “helped them feel good, unique, and special” (Armstrong 1991: 219, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Among adolescents and college students, the purpose for their tattoo was “expressing myself” and the reason for doing it with a tattoo was “I just wanted one”
(Armstrong and McConnell 1994; Armstrong and Pace-Murphy 1997; Greif et al., 1999: 368, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Forbes (2001) found college students “just liked the looks of it” (p. 778) and they offered the tattoo as a form of self-expression. Military recruits’ reasons were to “be myself, I don’t need to impress people anymore” and because they just wanted one (Armstrong et al. 2000: 137, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002)."
"Bell also refers to Paul Willis’s theory on symbolic creativity, which states that even though the lives of young people are not involved in the arts, they are full of expressions, signs, and symbols to establish the young persons presence, identity and meaning. Being tattooed is an act of this creativity. Forming an identity is important to young and old, and for some, tattoos can be a symbolic part of this identity. Tattoos can honor their family or lover, display their religious beliefs or patriotism, or their association with a certain group (Bell 1999)."
"Bell writes that women choose softer, more personal images for tattoos and place them where they can be hidden. Men choose macho imagery and place them where they can be seen. Tattoos have long been associated with men because of the stereotype of the tattooed person and the pain associated with it, so when a woman gets tattoos, it is regarded as a resistance to female beauty as society commonly sees it. She writes; “it takes a strong will and sense of self (identity) to withstand the blatant and piercing stares” (p. 56) because of the stigma still attached that differs in every culture and city. As stated earlier, it creates a separation from mainstream society (Bell, 1999)."
"Prison tattoos are “identity claimers” (p. 55), according to Bell, that are associated with gang or group membership. Prison tattoos are done with single needles and with no color, so they appear very different than tattoos done professionally in a tattoo studio. This difference in imagery and the way it is done creates a class marker between prison and professional tattoos for all of society to see (Bell 1999). Some prison inmates bring their own equipment; a sharpened guitar string for a needle and a melted down checker piece for the ink, according to an article by Ronald Day in Body Positive magazine (2005)."
"An article in Jet magazine dated July 2001 writes that athletes get tattoos for several reasons. One athlete has tattoos that portray his attitude in life, such as “Only the Strong Survive” (p. 46), and some that are dedicated to his family and friends. Another uses them to express himself through meaningful symbols. Yet another says his tattoos “revolve around my life. I think tattoos are something that tell who you are and how you feel” (p. 46)."
"There are myths that people get tattoos for personal advertisement and that every tattoo means something explicit. Some people do get a tattoo with the intention of others seeing and interpreting it, yet others have a tattoo in places that cannot be seen by the general public because it is a symbol for their self and those that they are intimate with. The more tattoos a person has, the less meaning the actual tattoo has. The meaning is in the act of getting the tattoo. It becomes less about it meaning something to them down the road, and more about it being aesthetically pleasing (Bell 1999). “Meanings change, beauty and truth are eternal” (Bell 1999: 57)."
"There is no other form of adornment or decoration that is permanent. Fashions allow change of mind, tattooing does not. The most common concern about tattoos is their permanence (Bell 1999). This fear of permanence says a lot about society and “its unwillingness to commit to identity and accept the consequences. To do something permanent is to be unable to take it back – it is to live in truth for eternity” (Bell 1999: 57)."
"A lot of women get tattoos to reclaim their bodies or to mark incidents in their lives. A mother, father, and several friends of a student that died got tattoos to mark the loss. It is a constant reminder of him and a symbol of the relationship and closeness he had with each one. The pain of getting it done was welcomed as a pain that could be controlled amongst all of the emotional pain that could not be controlled. Another woman got her whole arm tattooed to represent a reclaiming of her childhood. Women tend to get tattoos to mark a change in the way they see themselves, not to change the way society sees them (Keinlen, 2005)."
"In Cultural Anthropology journal, 1997, Daniel Rosenblatt writes about the “modern primitive”, meaning the tattooed person of today in the Western world. Linking modern day tattooing with the ancient world brings in a long history and thus exemplifies it as a human practice. Identifying with tattooing in other cultures allows people to feel like they’re connecting with the history of humanity (Rosenblatt 1997). It allows us to see tattooing as a spiritual activity because it is ancient and widespread and “is seen as an expression of a basic human need for rituals that give life meaning” (p. 303) and connects the tattooed person to the rest of humanity (Hardy, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997). The modern tattooed person is seeking other truths and other ways of knowing the world. The tattoo can connect the person wearing it to knowledge of powers in “nature” that the “primitive” people knew in intimacy (Zuluata, as cited in Rosenblatt1997). The growing popularity of tattooing in the Western world may be interpreted as a sign of a bigger change in society (Rosenblatt 1997). Maybe we are no longer the “monolithic engine of rationality” (p. 304) that we are imagined to be (Rosenblatt1997)."
"Some people get tattoos to express the aspects of them that go against the stereotyping of society. It can be a process of self-exploration, affirmation of self, and/or a mask. It opens the person up to the world by expressing beliefs or feelings in a visible manner, yet it can create a barrier against the world (Handel, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997)."
"In Rosenblatt’s piece, he quotes Fakir Musafar; “The purpose of the tattoo is to do something for the person, to help them realize the individual magic latent within them [Vale and Juno 1989:11]”. The tattoo can be a way to get in touch with the private, intuitive self and can be an act of reclaiming the self. There is a relationship between controlling your body and realizing yourself as an individual. This is why tattoos are popular in prison – no one can take away your skin. They are an expression of freedom (Hardy, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997)."
"The issue of power and control is also prevalent in the youth who get tattoos according to Georg Simmel in his 1950 essay, “The Metropolis and Mental Life”. In this essay he writes of conformity and mistrust in modern life producing an uneasiness that leads people to look for ways to express individuation and find selffulfillment. He states that deviance is an outlet for this (Koch, Roberts, Cannon, Armstrong, and Owen 2004)."
"Lyman and Scott (1970) take this idea further by discussing four sites in which the individuation may occur: public territories, home territories, interactional territories, and body territories. Body territories are the most private and sacred of the territories. Even though body territories are sometimes regulated socially, the person can also claim it as a place of self-expression. The body is a viable way to express oneself symbolically, especially if the person has limited access to the other territorial forms. Irwin (2001) and Velliquette and Murray (2002) agree and add that tattoos “represent both a moral passage of sorts and also an attempt to individuate oneself from the larger society” (Koch [interesting], Roberts, Cannon, Armstrong, and Owen 2004: p. 83). It is a public display of self-concept and is important in developing the social self for some people (Koch et al. 2004)."
"For some people, getting a tattoo means that they have done something real about their relationship to the world because of its permanence and its connection to their inner self. The tattoo can express and take away their unhappiness with the roles society offers them, and it can bring them a refuge from societal conditioning. The ancient background of tattoos makes them a human and permanent commitment rather than a fad of society, therefore, tattoos become a culturally recognized way to express self. The body is a way of expressing and altering the relationship between self and society. It uses the skin, sexuality, the body and the “primitive” connection as key symbolic domains to recover and express the self."
"Primitive cultures encourage development of intuition and magic and allow for more expression of individuality than we do in Western culture. So, a tattoo in Western culture makes the person look different, and also gives their difference a greater meaning. It brings some part of the personal inner self out and makes it part of the social self, and frees the person from society to become human instead of Western. In having control over their body, the person has control over their self, which becomes a powerful emotional experience (Rosenblatt 1997)."
"Memorial tattoos are popular, especially among the military. Many Marines in Iraq get tattoos as “a way to give ink-and-skin permanence to friends taken young. It’s like death—it’s forever” (Phillips 2006: A8). “It’s also never forget the cost of war, to get people to understand what they’re asking for when they support war” (Phillips 2006: A8). For some, the pain of the needle eased the guilt of having survived and the sorrow of the loss. Some said that feeling the pain made it okay that the others got killed and they didn’t. It became a way to remember their brothers (Phillips 2006)."
"Mary Kosut brings another theory of motivation forth in her 2005 article in Deviant Behavior journal where she contributes that some motivations for getting a tattoo are characterized as negative (Kosut 2005). The desire to be tattooed “may be the result of deficiency or because of low levels of cortical arousal and a need for constant stimulation” (Copes and Forsyth 1993; Favazza 1996, as cited in Kosut 2005: 82). Her article also provides that tattoo artists have been associated with “non-normative behavior” (p. 83). This train of thought has been redefined and reinterpreted throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because of the amount of trained artists in the field of tattooing (Kosut 2005)."
"People have the perception that so much is out of their control. Making their mark on the only thing that we have some control of (our body) is a way of easing our anxiety about the world situation, a way of having some control over something. Also, in times of crisis people tend to look for spiritual meaning in life, a meaning that they can hold on to forever, something larger and more powerful than the material world."
"In this fast paced, techmological society where everybody is becoming a number, being tattooed is a way of remaining a person, something capable of feeling and expression. It is possibly another coping mechanism that helps an individual get along in the world as it is today. A person’s tattoo may look exactly like someone else’s, but the feeling and meaning of what it represents to each one of them is entirely different. No one or no thing can take that away from them, not even the worldly powers that control everything else in society."
"According to Bell (1999), American tattooing is unique. Tattoos are images and literal interpretations of things, not surprising because America is a consumer society. Bell states that the meaning of the act of tattooing is “inextricably linked” (p. 54) to the chosen image itself. Any permanent mark on the body signifies a person’s separation from the mainstream of culture, and a tattoo can separate someone from society at large. Separation from society is a large factor in her theory about tattoos and why people get them. She states, “tattooing is a struggle for individualization in a society that is increasingly impersonal” (p. 54). They are a sign of resistance to the impermanent and conservative world of today. She quotes Vaclav Havel as saying that being tattooed is synonymous with “living the truth” (p. 54); your own personal truth."
"Christensen (2000) found many reasons for getting tattoos including “expressing individuality, communicating rebellion, defining group membership, conveying spiritual meaning, or marking milestones such as life or death” (Christensen 2000: 432, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Tattooed career women said that the tattoo “helped them feel good, unique, and special” (Armstrong 1991: 219, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Among adolescents and college students, the purpose for their tattoo was “expressing myself” and the reason for doing it with a tattoo was “I just wanted one”
(Armstrong and McConnell 1994; Armstrong and Pace-Murphy 1997; Greif et al., 1999: 368, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002). Forbes (2001) found college students “just liked the looks of it” (p. 778) and they offered the tattoo as a form of self-expression. Military recruits’ reasons were to “be myself, I don’t need to impress people anymore” and because they just wanted one (Armstrong et al. 2000: 137, as cited in Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, and Koch 2002).""Bell also refers to Paul Willis’s theory on symbolic creativity, which states that even though the lives of young people are not involved in the arts, they are full of expressions, signs, and symbols to establish the young persons presence, identity and meaning. Being tattooed is an act of this creativity. Forming an identity is important to young and old, and for some, tattoos can be a symbolic part of this identity. Tattoos can honor their family or lover, display their religious beliefs or patriotism, or their association with a certain group (Bell 1999)."
"Bell writes that women choose softer, more personal images for tattoos and place them where they can be hidden. Men choose macho imagery and place them where they can be seen. Tattoos have long been associated with men because of the stereotype of the tattooed person and the pain associated with it, so when a woman gets tattoos, it is regarded as a resistance to female beauty as society commonly sees it. She writes; “it takes a strong will and sense of self (identity) to withstand the blatant and piercing stares” (p. 56) because of the stigma still attached that differs in every culture and city. As stated earlier, it creates a separation from mainstream society (Bell, 1999)."
"Prison tattoos are “identity claimers” (p. 55), according to Bell, that are associated with gang or group membership. Prison tattoos are done with single needles and with no color, so they appear very different than tattoos done professionally in a tattoo studio. This difference in imagery and the way it is done creates a class marker between prison and professional tattoos for all of society to see (Bell 1999). Some prison inmates bring their own equipment; a sharpened guitar string for a needle and a melted down checker piece for the ink, according to an article by Ronald Day in Body Positive magazine (2005)."
"An article in Jet magazine dated July 2001 writes that athletes get tattoos for several reasons. One athlete has tattoos that portray his attitude in life, such as “Only the Strong Survive” (p. 46), and some that are dedicated to his family and friends. Another uses them to express himself through meaningful symbols. Yet another says his tattoos “revolve around my life. I think tattoos are something that tell who you are and how you feel” (p. 46)."
"There are myths that people get tattoos for personal advertisement and that every tattoo means something explicit. Some people do get a tattoo with the intention of others seeing and interpreting it, yet others have a tattoo in places that cannot be seen by the general public because it is a symbol for their self and those that they are intimate with. The more tattoos a person has, the less meaning the actual tattoo has. The meaning is in the act of getting the tattoo. It becomes less about it meaning something to them down the road, and more about it being aesthetically pleasing (Bell 1999). “Meanings change, beauty and truth are eternal” (Bell 1999: 57)."
"There is no other form of adornment or decoration that is permanent. Fashions allow change of mind, tattooing does not. The most common concern about tattoos is their permanence (Bell 1999). This fear of permanence says a lot about society and “its unwillingness to commit to identity and accept the consequences. To do something permanent is to be unable to take it back – it is to live in truth for eternity” (Bell 1999: 57)."
"A lot of women get tattoos to reclaim their bodies or to mark incidents in their lives. A mother, father, and several friends of a student that died got tattoos to mark the loss. It is a constant reminder of him and a symbol of the relationship and closeness he had with each one. The pain of getting it done was welcomed as a pain that could be controlled amongst all of the emotional pain that could not be controlled. Another woman got her whole arm tattooed to represent a reclaiming of her childhood. Women tend to get tattoos to mark a change in the way they see themselves, not to change the way society sees them (Keinlen, 2005)."
"In Cultural Anthropology journal, 1997, Daniel Rosenblatt writes about the “modern primitive”, meaning the tattooed person of today in the Western world. Linking modern day tattooing with the ancient world brings in a long history and thus exemplifies it as a human practice. Identifying with tattooing in other cultures allows people to feel like they’re connecting with the history of humanity (Rosenblatt 1997). It allows us to see tattooing as a spiritual activity because it is ancient and widespread and “is seen as an expression of a basic human need for rituals that give life meaning” (p. 303) and connects the tattooed person to the rest of humanity (Hardy, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997). The modern tattooed person is seeking other truths and other ways of knowing the world. The tattoo can connect the person wearing it to knowledge of powers in “nature” that the “primitive” people knew in intimacy (Zuluata, as cited in Rosenblatt1997). The growing popularity of tattooing in the Western world may be interpreted as a sign of a bigger change in society (Rosenblatt 1997). Maybe we are no longer the “monolithic engine of rationality” (p. 304) that we are imagined to be (Rosenblatt1997)."
"Some people get tattoos to express the aspects of them that go against the stereotyping of society. It can be a process of self-exploration, affirmation of self, and/or a mask. It opens the person up to the world by expressing beliefs or feelings in a visible manner, yet it can create a barrier against the world (Handel, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997)."
"In Rosenblatt’s piece, he quotes Fakir Musafar; “The purpose of the tattoo is to do something for the person, to help them realize the individual magic latent within them [Vale and Juno 1989:11]”. The tattoo can be a way to get in touch with the private, intuitive self and can be an act of reclaiming the self. There is a relationship between controlling your body and realizing yourself as an individual. This is why tattoos are popular in prison – no one can take away your skin. They are an expression of freedom (Hardy, as cited in Rosenblatt 1997)."
"The issue of power and control is also prevalent in the youth who get tattoos according to Georg Simmel in his 1950 essay, “The Metropolis and Mental Life”. In this essay he writes of conformity and mistrust in modern life producing an uneasiness that leads people to look for ways to express individuation and find selffulfillment. He states that deviance is an outlet for this (Koch, Roberts, Cannon, Armstrong, and Owen 2004)."
"Lyman and Scott (1970) take this idea further by discussing four sites in which the individuation may occur: public territories, home territories, interactional territories, and body territories. Body territories are the most private and sacred of the territories. Even though body territories are sometimes regulated socially, the person can also claim it as a place of self-expression. The body is a viable way to express oneself symbolically, especially if the person has limited access to the other territorial forms. Irwin (2001) and Velliquette and Murray (2002) agree and add that tattoos “represent both a moral passage of sorts and also an attempt to individuate oneself from the larger society” (Koch [interesting], Roberts, Cannon, Armstrong, and Owen 2004: p. 83). It is a public display of self-concept and is important in developing the social self for some people (Koch et al. 2004)."
"For some people, getting a tattoo means that they have done something real about their relationship to the world because of its permanence and its connection to their inner self. The tattoo can express and take away their unhappiness with the roles society offers them, and it can bring them a refuge from societal conditioning. The ancient background of tattoos makes them a human and permanent commitment rather than a fad of society, therefore, tattoos become a culturally recognized way to express self. The body is a way of expressing and altering the relationship between self and society. It uses the skin, sexuality, the body and the “primitive” connection as key symbolic domains to recover and express the self."
"Primitive cultures encourage development of intuition and magic and allow for more expression of individuality than we do in Western culture. So, a tattoo in Western culture makes the person look different, and also gives their difference a greater meaning. It brings some part of the personal inner self out and makes it part of the social self, and frees the person from society to become human instead of Western. In having control over their body, the person has control over their self, which becomes a powerful emotional experience (Rosenblatt 1997)."
"Memorial tattoos are popular, especially among the military. Many Marines in Iraq get tattoos as “a way to give ink-and-skin permanence to friends taken young. It’s like death—it’s forever” (Phillips 2006: A8). “It’s also never forget the cost of war, to get people to understand what they’re asking for when they support war” (Phillips 2006: A8). For some, the pain of the needle eased the guilt of having survived and the sorrow of the loss. Some said that feeling the pain made it okay that the others got killed and they didn’t. It became a way to remember their brothers (Phillips 2006)."
"Mary Kosut brings another theory of motivation forth in her 2005 article in Deviant Behavior journal where she contributes that some motivations for getting a tattoo are characterized as negative (Kosut 2005). The desire to be tattooed “may be the result of deficiency or because of low levels of cortical arousal and a need for constant stimulation” (Copes and Forsyth 1993; Favazza 1996, as cited in Kosut 2005: 82). Her article also provides that tattoo artists have been associated with “non-normative behavior” (p. 83). This train of thought has been redefined and reinterpreted throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because of the amount of trained artists in the field of tattooing (Kosut 2005)."
"People have the perception that so much is out of their control. Making their mark on the only thing that we have some control of (our body) is a way of easing our anxiety about the world situation, a way of having some control over something. Also, in times of crisis people tend to look for spiritual meaning in life, a meaning that they can hold on to forever, something larger and more powerful than the material world."
"In this fast paced, techmological society where everybody is becoming a number, being tattooed is a way of remaining a person, something capable of feeling and expression. It is possibly another coping mechanism that helps an individual get along in the world as it is today. A person’s tattoo may look exactly like someone else’s, but the feeling and meaning of what it represents to each one of them is entirely different. No one or no thing can take that away from them, not even the worldly powers that control everything else in society."
- Ankhs and anchors: tattoo as an expression of identity - exploring motivation and meaning
- Blackout Tattoos Are Trendy—But Are They Safe?
"Like fashion, tattoos go through trends. Lower back tattoos, inner wrist ink, and tiny finger tats have all had their moment. Now, there’s a new tattoo trend showing up on social media: Blackout tattoos.
Unlike its predecessors, blackout tattoos cover large portions of the body—arms, chests, legs, and stomachs—in solid black ink. Some are done to cover up existing tattoos; others are simply done for aesthetic reasons.
That’s a lot of ink for your body to handle at once. Is it safe? Experts aren’t entirely sure, but they have concerns.
“Studies from the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, suggest that the body…metabolizes small amounts of tattoo pigment, making it more water soluble so it can get excreted,” women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., tells SELF. “The research also shows that some pigment migrates from the tattoo site to the body's lymph nodes.” Wider points out that there are even a few cases of the pigment mimicking cancerous calcifications, causing people to undergo unnecessary surgery.
Marie Leger, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of dermatology at NYU who has studied the impact of tattoos on skin tells SELF that this kind of intense tattooing hasn’t been widely studied. However, she points out, there may be some health risks.
“Black tattoo ink is made up of carbon black, and contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, including including benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) which are suspected to be carcinogenic,” she says. And, Wider notes, having larger amounts of this in your body could spell trouble for your future health. “The more carcinogens circulating in the body, seeping into the lymph system…it would be realistic to assume, the more risk of cancer,” she says.
There is also a chance that a blackout tattoo could affect vitamin D synthesis, Leger says, i.e. your body’s ability to get and break down vitamin D from sun exposure. Diagnosing skin cancer and other skin conditions in areas that are covered by blackout ink could also prove difficult, Leger says.
Black ink can cause symptomatic tattoo reactions like itching, redness, and raised portions of the tattoo, Leger says, noting that it’s especially a risk after sun exposure.
While allergic reactions are always a concern with tattoos, they’re less so with blackout tattoos than tattoos with other colors of ink like red, green, and blue, dermatologist David E. Bank, M.D. , director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic & Laser Surgery in Mount Kisco, New York, tells SELF. But, he notes, black ink contains iron oxide, which makes it difficult for MRI scanners to heat up and take a reading, should a person with a blackout tattoo need it. “The area might also swell or feel like it is burning while under an MRI,” Bank says.
However, there may be a slight health upside to blackout tattoos, Leger says: Danish researchers studied the impact of black tattoo ink and UV radiation on hairless mice and found that the mice that were tattooed had delayed skin cancers compared to those that were not tattooed, indicating that the black tattoos had a protective effect.
Of course, there’s also the concern of what to do if you get a blackout tattoo and decide down the road that you don’t want it anymore. It’s possible to remove these kinds of tattoos, Leger says, but it can be a process: “While black is usually one of the easier colors to remove with laser tattoo removal, such a high color density makes tattoos more difficult and more painful to remove.”
Bottom line: You probably want to think twice before getting a blackout tattoo."
Unlike its predecessors, blackout tattoos cover large portions of the body—arms, chests, legs, and stomachs—in solid black ink. Some are done to cover up existing tattoos; others are simply done for aesthetic reasons.
That’s a lot of ink for your body to handle at once. Is it safe? Experts aren’t entirely sure, but they have concerns.
“Studies from the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, suggest that the body…metabolizes small amounts of tattoo pigment, making it more water soluble so it can get excreted,” women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., tells SELF. “The research also shows that some pigment migrates from the tattoo site to the body's lymph nodes.” Wider points out that there are even a few cases of the pigment mimicking cancerous calcifications, causing people to undergo unnecessary surgery.
Marie Leger, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of dermatology at NYU who has studied the impact of tattoos on skin tells SELF that this kind of intense tattooing hasn’t been widely studied. However, she points out, there may be some health risks.
“Black tattoo ink is made up of carbon black, and contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, including including benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) which are suspected to be carcinogenic,” she says. And, Wider notes, having larger amounts of this in your body could spell trouble for your future health. “The more carcinogens circulating in the body, seeping into the lymph system…it would be realistic to assume, the more risk of cancer,” she says.
There is also a chance that a blackout tattoo could affect vitamin D synthesis, Leger says, i.e. your body’s ability to get and break down vitamin D from sun exposure. Diagnosing skin cancer and other skin conditions in areas that are covered by blackout ink could also prove difficult, Leger says.
Black ink can cause symptomatic tattoo reactions like itching, redness, and raised portions of the tattoo, Leger says, noting that it’s especially a risk after sun exposure.
While allergic reactions are always a concern with tattoos, they’re less so with blackout tattoos than tattoos with other colors of ink like red, green, and blue, dermatologist David E. Bank, M.D. , director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic & Laser Surgery in Mount Kisco, New York, tells SELF. But, he notes, black ink contains iron oxide, which makes it difficult for MRI scanners to heat up and take a reading, should a person with a blackout tattoo need it. “The area might also swell or feel like it is burning while under an MRI,” Bank says.
However, there may be a slight health upside to blackout tattoos, Leger says: Danish researchers studied the impact of black tattoo ink and UV radiation on hairless mice and found that the mice that were tattooed had delayed skin cancers compared to those that were not tattooed, indicating that the black tattoos had a protective effect.
Of course, there’s also the concern of what to do if you get a blackout tattoo and decide down the road that you don’t want it anymore. It’s possible to remove these kinds of tattoos, Leger says, but it can be a process: “While black is usually one of the easier colors to remove with laser tattoo removal, such a high color density makes tattoos more difficult and more painful to remove.”
Bottom line: You probably want to think twice before getting a blackout tattoo."
- Tattoo Pigments Are Observed in the Kupffer Cells of the Liver Indicating Blood-Borne Distribution of Tattoo Ink
- Tattoo ink nanoparticles in skin tissue and fibroblasts
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