Tattoo inks consist of pigments combined with a carrier, used in the process of tattooing to create a tattoo in the skin. These inks are also used for permanent makeup, a form of tattoo.
Professional tattoo inks are available in many colors and use a wide variety of pigments, including inorganic pigments, such as carbon black, and synthetic organic pigments, such as brightly-colored azo-chemicals. Commercial manufacturers combine pigments with carriers such as ethyl alcohol or distilled water to create liquid inks. They may include preservatives to reduce risk of contamination and other additives to adjust the viscosity of the ink.
Pigments and preservatives in tattoo ink can cause allergic reactions in skin. A portion of pigment applied in a tattoo may migrate to other places in the body, such as lymph nodes. Some common tattoo pigments are chemicals that may cause cancer, but longer-term studies would be needed to determine whether these chemicals increase risk of cancer if embedded in the skin.
The European Union has started to prohibit use of certain pigments in tattoo inks due to safety concerns. In the United States, tattoo inks are subject to regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which generally does not investigate commercial inks unless it receives complaints about specific safety issues, such as contamination. The FDA has not specifically approved any pigments for cosmetic tattoos.
Tattooing is an ancient practice, and archeologists have found evidence of tattoos made with soot among people in multiple continents thousands of years ago. Especially after the invention of the electric tattoo machine in the late 1800s, tattoo artists experimented with many chemicals to identify durable pigments that could produce a range of colors without causing bad reactions, often testing inks in their own skin.
Most tattoo inks are intended to be permanent, but there are commercial methods for creating semi-permanent tattoos. There are also traditions of temporary tattoos applied to the surface of the skin using pigments such as mehndi.
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