90% of tattoo ink contains chemicals that can cause organ damage

Worth remembering a few things:<p>- This isn&#x27;t 90% &quot;of tattoo ink&quot;, it&#x27;s 90% of the inks they tested. Most tattoo ink is black, which their tests indicate is accurately labeled (edit: black ink is mostly just the element carbon so this isn&#x27;t surprising).<p>- This kind of problem is why experienced tattooists will test colors on peoples&#x27; skin to look for reactions.<p>- Tattooing, though under-studied, depends on the ink largely sitting under the skin but generally being stable. While it&#x27;s totally possible that decay over time could expose your organs to the contents of the ink, when it works well the ink is just sitting there so risks should be low.<p>- Obviously this should be corrected and is a real indictment of the medical community&#x27;s position that they won&#x27;t study tattooing as a procedure we could improve (the general position on tattooing is &quot;don&#x27;t do it&quot;).

Every time I see a beautiful tattoo, I always feel an itch, eager to try it. But whenever I think about how much more troublesome it would be to remove these tattoos if I changed my mind, I back down. So, I haven&#x27;t even started to worry about whether these inks could potentially harm my organs :-p

&gt; Out of 54 inks, 45 contained unlisted additives and&#x2F;or pigments<p>Seems unlisted additives is incredibly common in almost every industry in the United States.

The amount of ink that goes into the skin is tiny - maybe a gram of ink for a normal size tattoo. So when they get upset about ethanol or even propylene glycol - I wouldn&#x27;t think the amounts are large enough to be very significant. When it comes to dyes though - I would be afraid of some of those bright colors, I have no idea what they are using and a lot of dyes are toxic. My tattoos are all black and gray - even though carbon black also contains carcinogens, I think the history of humans using it for tattoos for thousands of years shows that carbon black tattoos are not likely to cause cancer.

Hmm if this was so bad, wouldn&#x27;t we notice? I tend to take the more established artists, not the biker dudes so I imagine they use decent materials.

I&#x27;m reminded of this study.<p>&quot;Nanoparticles from tattoos circulate inside the body&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;phys.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017-09-nanoparticles-tattoos-circulate-body.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;phys.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017-09-nanoparticles-tattoos-circulat...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;CcpHF" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;CcpHF</a>

Would it be reasonable to assume that, if coloured tattoos caused significant organ damage, the medical profession would notice some correlation. Are nephrologist offices suddenly seeing a lot of 30-somethings with tattoo sleeves and 50-something Harley Davidson enthusiasts appearing in their offices?

Meanwhile in the EU:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;20231002184221&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;06&#x2F;19&#x2F;health&#x2F;tattoo-ink-europe.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;20231002184221&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;20...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;echa.europa.eu&#x2F;hot-topics&#x2F;tattoo-inks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;echa.europa.eu&#x2F;hot-topics&#x2F;tattoo-inks</a>

I always wondered about this. I assumed &quot;surely there must be loads of studies on what happens if a person&#x27;s back, arms and thighs are covered in colorful tattoos, because nature didn&#x27;t design us to do this by default&quot;.<p>Nature also didn&#x27;t design us to wear socks, but that seems mostly harmless. I just always wondered about putting ink permanently in skin.<p>People get exotic glow in the dark tattoo ink. That seems nuts to me.

Not very surprising that the real bad boys like azo dyes are in color ink.<p>It&#x27;s very convenient that my aesthetic preference is for blackwork!

The EU has banned a lot of tattoo inks in 2022.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;2024&#x2F;02&#x2F;caveat-emptor-90-of-tattoo-inks-have-unlabeled-or-mislabeled-ingredients&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;2024&#x2F;02&#x2F;caveat-emptor-90-of-...</a>

On the US market.

90% of tattoo _inks_, not tattoo ink.

&gt; 90% of tattoo ink contains chemicals that can cause organ damage<p>It is not what the study says. What the study says is &quot;Out of 54 inks, 45 contained unlisted additives and&#x2F;or pigments&quot;.<p>I mean, 100% of tattoos cause damage to the body, people know that. The problem is that people would like to know if it their particular case, because of an allergy, it may be worse than usual. And for that, knowing what&#x27;s in the ink is important, and that&#x27;s what the article is about.

Just remember its always on you to protect your own best interest. It&#x27;s hard to trust Doctors who swear an Oath to do no harm. Tattoo artists don&#x27;t even don&#x27;t even need to swear an oath. Though some tattoo artists might be very honourable people. Don&#x27;t expect them to do the research and critical thinking for you. That&#x27;s on you.<p>Just two give two recent example from where I live.<p>1) My city allowed a developer to build townhomes. Probably even got grants for doing it. As long as I remember the land was a transformer station. With maybe 20+ transformers there. Notorious for containing cancerous pcb chemicals. Now families with little children will be living there.<p>2) A COVID vaccine injured young mother was just offered assisted suicide by Doctors in Ontario. The doctors that told her it was totally safe and effective, are not Samurai and end their life in shame. They&#x27;ll go home in their BMW and enjoy pizza.

100% of water contains chemicals that can cause organ damage

I&#x27;ll never understand how tattoos became so socially acceptable that 46% of people 30-49yo now have at least one: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;short-reads&#x2F;2023&#x2F;08&#x2F;15&#x2F;32-of-americans-have-a-tattoo-including-22-who-have-more-than-one&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pewresearch.org&#x2F;short-reads&#x2F;2023&#x2F;08&#x2F;15&#x2F;32-of-ame...</a><p>As if the continual rising prevalence of overweight and obese bodies (which I understand is not necessarily the fault of the individual) wasn&#x27;t bad enough, people actually pay money to endure pain, risk exposure to bloodborne illnesses, and now apparently also to organ-damaging chemicals, all so they can permanently disfigure themselves to look uglier and trashier.