10 Facts About Tattoos

Tattoos are intriguing to some and a must have for others. Here are some tattoo facts for you.

1. According to a survey, more women than men in the US have tattoos.

When it comes to getting inked, 59 percent of women have tattoos compared to 41 percent of men, according to a new poll released by the Oxygen Network and Light speed Research. What’s more, 40 percent of women made their tattoo experience a shared one, often getting inked with friends and loved ones. Apparently women use the “bring-a-buddy” approach to tattoo parlors, just like they do with public bathrooms.

2. To mix tattoo color, urine was used sometimes.

Mixed with coal dust, urine was used in some cultures for tattooing. You have to wonder as to who thought of this combination – not to mention how and why.

“Hey look! You peed in the coal dust.” – “Yeah… Hey, I know! Let’s get a sharp object, coat the tip in some of my coal-pee, and scratch it into your skin!” – “Dude!”

Today Tattoo inks consist of pigments combined with a carrier. Tattoo inks are available in a range of colors that can be thinned or mixed together to produce other colors and shades. Most professional tattoo artists purchase inks pre-made (known as pre-dispersed inks), while some tattooers mix their own using a dry pigment and a carrier.

Pigment bases: Manufacturers are not required to reveal their ingredients or conduct trials, and recipes may be proprietary. Professional inks may be made from iron oxides (rust), metal salts, plastics. Homemade or traditional tattoo inks may be made from pen ink, soot, dirt, blood, or other ingredients. Heavy metals used for colors include mercury (red), lead (yellow, green, white), cadmium (red, orange, yellow), nickel (black), zinc (yellow, white), chromium (green), cobalt (blue), aluminium (green, violet), titanium (white), copper (blue, green), iron (brown, red, black), and barium (white). Metal oxides used include ferrocyanide and ferricyanide (yellow, red, green, blue). Organic chemicals used include azo-chemicals (orange, brown, yellow, green, violet) and naphtha-derived chemicals (red). Carbon (soot or ash) is also used for black. Other elements used as pigments include antimony, arsenic, beryllium, calcium, lithium, selenium, and sulphur. Tattoo ink manufacturers typically blend the heavy metal pigments and/or use lightening agents (such as lead or titanium) to reduce production costs.

Carriers: A carrier acts as a solvent for the pigment, to “carry” the pigment from the point of needle trauma to the surrounding dermis. Carriers keep the ink evenly mixed and free from pathogens and aid application. The most typical solvent is ethyl alcohol or water, but denatured alcohols, methanol, rubbing alcohol, propylene glycol, and glycerine are also used. When an alcohol is used as part of the carrier base in tattoo ink or to disinfect the skin before application of the tattoo, it increases the skin’s permeability, helping to transport more chemicals into the bloodstream.

Other tattoo inks such as Glow in the dark ink and black light inks have been used for tattooing. Glow in the dark ink absorbs and retains light, and then glows in darkened conditions by process of phosphorescence. Black light ink does not glow in the dark, but reacts to non-visible UV-light, producing a visible glow by fluorescence. The resulting glow of both these inks is highly variable. The safety of such inks for use on humans is widely debated in the tattoo community.

3. Your skin is pierced 50 to 3000 times per minute by the tattoo machine when you get a tattoo.

4. The philosopher Confucius was against tattoos because he propagated that the human body is a gift. However, China’s stone sculptures depict men with tattoos on their faces as early as the 3rd century BC.

5. Most tattooed men.

The second most tattooed person has tattoos on 99.9% of his skin, with leopard skin patterns. He is from Scotland. The most tattooed person is 100% tattooed. Lucky Diamond Rich (born Gregory Paul Mclaren in 1971) is “the world’s most tattooed person” (a title formerly held by Tom Leppard), and has tattoos covering his entire body, including the inside of his eyelids, mouth, ears and foreskin. He holds the Guinness World Record as of 2006, being 100 percent tattooed.

6. Laser surgery is the most effective tattoo removal technique. Green and yellow are the most difficult to remove.Black is the easiest color to get rid off as it absorbs a greater number of laser waves.

7. The most popular tattoo images are angels and hearts.

8. Women are more likely to get their tattoos removed as compared to men.

9. ‘Holiday’ is the name given to the area where the color of the tattoo has faded.

10. Rocker Tommy Lee made a world record when he became the first man to be tattooed mid air in 2007. His name entered the Guinness Book of Records