How do you know if tattoo ink is safe?
When getting a tattoo, ink is injected and trapped in the middle layer of skin. If there are any harmful substances or allergens in the ink, it can cause a skin reaction. However, it is difficult to test inks for impurities because they don’t dissolve easily. To address this, a new paper in Analytical Chemistry looks at the contents of tattoo inks directly from skin.
The authors combined a laser and chemical process to remove molecular-sized particles of ink from skin samples. This dual approach allowed the ink and impurities to be characterised at the same time.
Applying the technique to five commercially available inks, they mapped the molecules present and found:
- Undeclared or banned substances
- Metallic titanium, zirconium, hafnium, aluminum, copper, nickel, and chromium
- Pigments and metals in areas of skin reaction
Why does this matter?
Developing techniques to fully understand the composition of tattoo inks can help enforce regulatory standards. By identifying the cause of adverse reactions, tattooing can be made safer with lower risks and fewer side effects.
Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.5c05136 from the American Chemical Society
Lea Tobergte, Johannes Schmeinck, Carina Wolf, Steffen Schubert and Uwe Karst, Simultaneous Elemental and Molecular Mass Spectrometry of Tattoo Inks and Tattooed Skin Biopsies: A Novel Laser Ablation-Based Technique for Tattoo Pigment Analysis, Anal. Chem., 2025