Tattoo Blog

By the end of 2006, Switzerland will have a federal law regulating what cannot be included in tattoo pigments, minimal health-risk education and examinations for tattoo artists, and verification of tattoo parlors, Maurice Adatto, M.D., said at the 14th International Academy of Cosmetic Dermatology World Congress.

Health officials also hope to include a clause regulating who can remove tattoos or permanent makeup, which is becoming a growing problem, said Dr. Adatto, a surgeon with the Skinpulse Dermatology Center in Geneva, who is helping to craft the legislation.

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Members of the audience voiced hope that the legislation would serve as an international model, and suggested that it should require manufacturers to identify the particle size of pigments, allowing for the efficient removal of tattoos in the future.

Dermatologists are often confronted with a mixture of colors with varying particle sizes that can react differently to various laser wavelengths, making removal unpredictable and difficult.

Lawyers advising the group took into account that some inks contain more than 50 ingredients each and suggested that it would be best to start by regulating what cannot be included in the inks, Dr. Adatto said.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s a start,” he said.

Other positive signs are that Austria is looking to follow suit with similar legislation, and French manufacturers recently began selling sterilized diluents for powdered colors.

Much remains to be done. There are 400-500 tattoo colors on the market, and many tattoo parlors are operating under “primitive hygiene rules,” Wolfgang Baumler, Ph.D., said during the same forum.

Despite evidence that tattoo particles migrate to the lymph nodes, canisters that contain industrial-grade colors used for car paint or printers’ ink and clearly marked “not for human use” are being rebottled for use in tattoo parlors, he said.

An evaluation of 63 pigment samples found 11 were contaminated with more than 100,000 bacteria/mL, and 3 samples were contaminated with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, said Dr. Baumler of the department of dermatology, University of Regensburg, Germany.

Today, women report receiving significantly more negative comments and having more problems with “’stigma” regarding their tattoos than do men. Women with tattoos are more likely to report embarrassment and “more societal fallout” than men with tattoos, according to Myrna L. Armstrong, Ed.D., of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Marble Falls, and her associates.

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The researchers studied the issue because “dermatologists are increasingly hearing stories of regrets and requests for tattoo removal. Estimated prevalence rates of dissatisfied tattoo wearers hover around 20%, with a smaller number who actually seek removal (6%),” they noted.

Dr. Armstrong and her colleagues assessed present-day tattoo removal using an anonymous survey of 196 clients aged 14-73 years who were attending four dermatology clinics in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Texas. They compared the results with those from a similar survey conducted in 1996.

Although most of these subjects had been pleased with their tattoos when they first got them, they reported feeling dissatisfied with the tattoos for an average of 10 years before finally seeking removal. Most people who wanted to remove tattoos in 1996 were men, whereas most of those seeking removal in the present day were women, especially “‘career-minded” women.

Women reported receiving significantly more negative comments and suffering significantly more embarrassment regarding their tattoos than did men. In particular, women reported their tattoos interfered with their job or career and that they elicited negative comments in the workplace, in public, and in school settings, as wells as from significant others.

Currently, women also reported having to hide their tattoos with cosmetics or bandages and being unable to wear certain clothing because of their tattoos more often than men did. These findings correspond with reports in the literature that tattoo wearers are perceived as having lower credibility, competence, and sociability, particularly in the workplace, Dr. Armstrong and her associates said (Arch. Dermatol. 2008;144:879-84).

“For women, their tattoo procurement may be a way to break out of the gender norms and take some social risk by visually displaying their assertive identity Yet, there still may be many members of society who consider tattoos on women to be a “transgression of gender boundaries,’ “” the researchers wrote.

The major reason cited for getting a tattoo among both men and women who later sought removal was that it “helped me feel unique.’” Most of these subjects grew “‘disillusioned because their unique product had lost its luster and excitement.” Some also said they were actively dissociating from their past or shifting their identity focus in order to “move on.”

Dr. Armstrong is an education consultant for Freedom2 Inc., described on its Web site as “part of a $250 billion worldwide skin care industry” that manufactures cosmetics and body art products including inks that produce permanent but removable tattoos.

An aggressive Lord who wants to rise in power will be forced to employ his own people. They will then love me with the love of parents, and will find my scent like that of the iris and epidendrum. They will turn from their lord and look upon him as if he were tattooed, and as if he were their sworn enemy.

Xun Qing [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 313-ca. 238 B.C) [1]