The European Tattoo Industry Is Getting An Ink Makeover As Chemists And Toxicologists Are Working To Understand The Science Behind Tattoo Inks
By Sidra Lackey
Tattoo inks live in murky regulatory territory in the US, Chemical & Engineering News reports in, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover.” Mark Prausnitz, a biomedical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology says on tattoo inks, “It’s not a drug. It’s not a food. It’s not even a cosmetic. It’s its own thing, and it’s very lightly regulated.”
Existing data have already pushed some governments to act. This year, the European Union enacted new regulations that prohibit tattoo inks from containing substances that are known to harm human health. To help guide future regulations, scientists are addressing questions about how the chemicals in inks change over time in skin and how they interact with human tissues. Meanwhile, some researchers are inventing new ink formulations, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover,” details.
Safety data for ink ingredients exist, but they were often collected in nontattoo contexts. Tattoo ink manufacturers formulate their products using ingredients originally intended for textiles, paints, and other manufacturing industries. So existing health data don’t account for these ingredients sitting in the skin for long periods. This data gap has left toxicologists and other health experts with questions about what factors cause some people with tattoos to experience adverse health events such as infections, allergic reactions, and other dermatologic problems, Chemical & Engineering News further reports.
Chemical & Engineering News breaks down tattoo ink colors: “Black and white inks, widely used for outlines, highlights, and shading, are made from the inorganic pigments carbon black and titanium dioxide, respectively. Most other inks owe their hues to organic pigments. Because these pigments are water insoluble by design, manufacturers add a cocktail of chemicals, such as glycerin and isopropyl alcohol, to solubilize these colorants and keep them shelf stable.” “A good ink will be formulated to flow easily into skin, stay where it’s injected, and maintain its color over time,” says Michael Dirks, a chemical engineer who co-founded a consulting company, called the 3 Pylons, that specializes in tattoo ink formulations.
Tattoos are, “generally safe, but some people experience health issues with body art beyond the uncomfortable yet expected wound-healing process,” it is pointed out in, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover.” A 2016 paper by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre describes reports of adverse tattoo-related health events, including allergic reactions, prolonged healing times, and infections. The Joint Research Centre report also points to evidence that, “tattoo machines’ needles may leave behind nickel and chromium debris in the skin, and both these metals are common allergens.”
Other investigations have found tattoo ink in lymph nodes and other tissues, which suggests that, “insoluble pigment particles may move through our tissues more extensively than previously thought.” These findings and others have prompted health officials to more closely examine tattoo ink ingredients’ toxicology, Chemical & Engineering News reports.
Tattoo inks don’t fit neatly into commonly regulated consumer categories. Over the past decades, commercial tattooing products have fallen under a patchwork of regulations that differ between countries and even between states, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover” says. In the US, intradermal inks used in tattoos and permanent makeup are classified as cosmetics under the Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA “traditionally has not exercised regulatory authority for color additives on the pigments used in tattoo inks,” the agency says on its website. In the European Union, some common ingredients in tattoo inks aren’t permitted for use in cosmetic products at all.
Inconsistencies in regulatory guidance on tattoo inks in EU member countries led the European Commission to adopt a new, unified ordinance under the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program in 2020. The EU’s expanded REACH regulations will restrict the use of about 4,200 chemicals—such as known carcinogens, mutagens, and irritants that are already prohibited from use in cosmetic products—in tattoo inks. The agency allowed the tattoo industry until Jan. 4, 2022, to comply with the new REACH restrictions, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover” explains.
Tattooists expressed concern over the new REACH regulations’ potential impact on the tattoo industry because there are no alternative blue and green pigments, Chemical & Engineering News reports. Dirks and his colleagues launched a petition with the European Parliament that has since garnered more than 178,200 cosigners in defense of the pigments. Both pigment blue 15 and pigment green 7 are exempted from the REACH restrictions until January 2023 to provide researchers an opportunity to present updated safety data and allow the tattoo industry to seek safer replacements. But Dirks and others fear that there are no suitable alternatives to replace these pigments in inks. “The tattoo industry is too small to pressure chemical manufacturers to develop new, REACH-compliant blue and green pigments,” he says. There are approved blue coloring agents used in the cosmetic industry, but they are dyes, which are water soluble. “Dye molecules don’t produce the same color intensity as pigments and are more easily degraded in skin,” Dirks remarks in “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover.”
As the EU enacts new tattoo ink regulations, scientists continue their investigations into the basic science behind tattoo ink chemistry and safety. John Swierk, a photochemist at Binghamton University, his team started analyzing the ingredients in about 100 commercial inks. “A majority of things that we’ve looked at have had some level of discrepancy,” Swierk says. For example, labels misrepresented pigments or omitted carrier substances. Swierk reported his team’s findings at the American Chemical Society Fall 2022 meeting in Chicago. His lab has begun collating results in a public database called What’s in My Ink?, which he hopes to expand as this project continues, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover” reports.
If people were developing tattoos for the first time today with current safety concerns in mind, “the set of pigments that get used in tattooing are not the set of pigments that you would choose in any way, shape, or form. But, it’s still early days for understanding tattoo ink chemistry and safety” John Swierk admits in Chemical & Engineering News, “Tattoo industry faces an ink makeover.”
Tattoo artists, what do you think will happen in January 2023 when REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals) restrictions in the EU end for pigments blue 15 and pigment green 7? Especially if the tattoo industry doesn’t have safer, alternative replacements for those ink pigments. And are you worried ink restrictions will eventually expand into the US?