Blacklight Tattoos: 2009

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Faded Blacklight Tattoo

This is a pic of the ever so famous skeleton hand blacklight tattoo two years after it was done. You can tell it has faded quite a bit, but still looks very cool!

Friday, May 1, 2009

There is NO SUCH THING as glow-in-the-dark tattoos. There is a difference between something that GLOWS (actually emits light in the dark) and something that is UV REACTIVE. The chemicals used to make things glow-in-the-dark are definitely not safe for tattooing with.

See my previous post about blacklight reactive ink for info on safe uv inks.

You can buy temporary tattoos online that glow. :)

Clubber Toys Glow Tattoos

Picasso Exports Glow Temp Tats

Perpetual Kid Super Glow Temp Tats

Glow-In-The-Dark Tempoarary tattoos

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Zebra UV Tattooz

The artists at Zebra Tattooz do some pretty nice blacklight reactive tattoo work. Their website is obnoxious looking - luckily website design is not their specialty!

Daylight

Blacklight

Ohhh, action shot:

Saturday, April 11, 2009

About Blacklight Ink

There are a lot of questions about black light tattoos posted in the comments. I thought I would take a minute to address some of them.

The most widely used UV reactive ink is Chameleon Ink which has a few special qualities. The black light reactive dye is encased in polymer microbeads which are suspended in sterile, distilled water. The same polymer that is used to make these microscopic beads has been used in dental prostheses, bone repair, eye lenses, orthopedics and in pacemakers and is better known as Lucite. These microspheres are 4-5 times the size of a red blood cell and are well tolerated by human tissue (no rejection). This means that the dye used never actually comes in contact with your system, but is safely inside the polymer microbeads. This is the same ink that has been used for decades to track fish and wildlife and is approved by the FDA (as far as I know, no other tattoo ink has FDA approval). (Read more about this technology here!)

Blacklight reactive ink comes in a wide range of colors, most of which are visible under normal light. UV inks are not quite as bright as normal inks under regular light. For an "invisible" tattoo, it must be done in white ink on light skin. Some scarring may occur because of the tattoo process that leaves the tattoo still visible under normal light. The Chameleon UV inks are water-based and blend differently than normal tattoo inks. Therefore, UV tattooing should only be done by experience professionals.

Can anyone vouch for any other brands of blacklight reactive ink? I've also heard of Skin Candy Black Light tattoo ink, but don't know how its made/what's in it. As far as I can tell, Chameleon ink is safe and lasts.