UV Tattoo

Yve

Is it possible to have UV Ink applied over an existing tattoo?

earleuginedoyle

sorry don't know the answer to this....
but i've been wondering about UV tatts for a while, have there been any bad side effects of them? like are they dangerous?

Reku

Yve wrote: »

Is it possible to have UV Ink applied over an existing tattoo?

Guess I'd best step in here...

In this context UV inks will be just like any other, and while you could get UV artwork done over none UV the contrast between the inks will decide if there's any point to it, the one difference would be that the contrast under UV might not be the same as the contrast under normal light. However I would strongly suspect that the glow would be dimmer than if you were tattooed with the same UV ink on virgin skin since it would be nigh-impossible to ensure that the UV ink is at a shallower depth than the prior ink, and of course if it were too shallow you risk the quality of the tattoo. As such you'd be viewing the UV ink through a filter of the ink from the first tattoo.

earleuginedoyle wrote:

sorry don't know the answer to this....
but i've been wondering about UV tatts for a while, have there been any bad side effects of them? like are they dangerous?

The actual pigment is enclosed in a tiny PMMA bead and as such is rendered inert to the body, while some of these beads may suffer damage during the tattooing process (I say may because I genuinely don't know but it is a possibility I could envision) the majority remain intact and so any exposure to the actual pigment would be minimal.
I've 3 and have had no negative effects or reactions so far. If you get a white UV ink tattoo (standard white ink is the same I'd imagine) be aware that due to the absence of colour it will appear to take longer to head since the pigment will not hide the continued healing of the area the actual ink injections took place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pmma wrote:

Medical technologies and implants
PMMA has a good degree of compatibility with human tissue, and can be used for replacement intraocular lenses in the eye when the original lens has been removed in the treatment of cataracts. This compatibility was discovered in WWII RAF pilots, whose eyes had been riddled with PMMA splinters coming from the side windows of their Supermarine Spitfire fighters - the plastic scarcely caused any rejection, compared to glass splinters coming from aircraft such as the Hawker Hurricane.[citation needed] Historically, hard contact lenses were frequently made of this material. Soft contact lenses are often made of a related polymer, where acrylate monomers containing one or more hydroxyl groups make them hydrophilic.
In orthopedic surgery, PMMA bone cement is used to affix implants and to remodel lost bone. It is supplied as a powder with liquid methyl methacrylate (MMA). When mixed these yield a dough-like cement that gradually hardens. Surgeons can judge the curing of the PMMA bone cement by pressing their thumb on it. Although PMMA is biologically compatible, MMA is considered to be an irritant and a possible carcinogen. PMMA has also been linked to cardiopulmonary events in the operating room due to hypotension.[17] Bone cement acts like a grout and not so much like a glue in arthroplasty. Although sticky, it does not bond to either the bone or the implant, it primarily fills the spaces between the prosthesis and the bone preventing motion. A big disadvantage to this bone cement is that it heats to quite a high temperature while setting and because of this it kills the bone in the surrounding area. It has a Young's modulus between cancellous bone and cortical bone. Thus it is a load sharing entity in the body not causing bone resorption.[18]
Dentures are often made of PMMA, and can be color-matched to the patient's teeth & gum tissue.
In cosmetic surgery, tiny PMMA microspheres suspended in some biological fluid are injected under the skin to reduce wrinkles or scars permanently.
Dental filling materials may also be made from a combination of PMMA and other compounds.[19]
Emerging biotechnology and Biomedical research uses PMMA to create microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices, which require 100 micron-wide geometries for routing liquids. These small geometries are amenable to using PMMA in a biochip fabrication process and offers moderate biocompatibility.
Bioprocess chromatography columns use cast acrylic tubes as an alternative to glass and stainless steel. These are pressure rated and satisfy stringent requirements of materials for biocompatibility, toxicity and extractables.

While that wikipedia page also points out that PMMA is used for UV filtration and one might think that this would be a problem for UV tattoos keep in mind that the filtration level would be proportional to the thickness of the PMMA, which in the case of the ink is an extremely thin skin over the ink, as such the reduction in incident UV light would be minimal, whereas the light that is then emitted by the ink, while weaker than the UV light, is not in the UV spectrum and so would be unaffected.


Having looked at the wikipedia page for UV ink I think I'd best clarify/correct most of the details...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_tattoo

The tattoos can be completely invisible in normal light, although scarring from the tattoo machine in the application process may remain, and therefore still show. A UV tattoo becomes visible under blacklight, when it glows in colors ranging from white to purple, depending on the ink chosen. Colored ink is also available, where the ink is visible in normal light (as with a regular tattoo) but the ink will glow vividly under UV light. However, some UV inks are not as bright under normal light as normal tattoo ink and are considered not as vibrant.

Unless there's been a lot of progress on them I've not heard of the only ink that can be (depends on your skin tone) invisible in daylight is the white one, which glows white under UV, just as non-UV white-ink can be invisible, all the others ARE visible in daylight as an off colour of their UV colour.

Some people have had reactions to ingredients in the ink, ranging from minor itching to dermatitis.

AFAIK all the reactions were to earlier attempts at UV ink, many attempts at which were nothing more than boiled down glow-in-the-dark paints.:eek:
It is possible though, heck I've had a minor reaction to the non-UV red ink in some of my tattoos, but due to the PMMA shell I doubt it is a greater risk than with a non-UV ink and the simple act of damaging the skin may in fact be the source of the problem, not the chemicals injected. Look at keloids for an easy example of the body over reacting to minor damage.

at this time, no research has been conducted into the side effects of long term exposure.

Quite true, but the same can be said for most chemicals/radiation sources we expose ourselves to day-in-day-out.

This can be caused by not protecting the tattoo from UV rays within 3 months of receiving the tattoo process or by using scented cremes or lotions on the tattoo area. This can damage the ink causing it to become a normal ink color in all light.

/em Shakes head and laughs...:rolleyes:
If the ink were damaged on a molecular level as they claim then
a) it'd still be in the PMMA and so unable to interact with the body
b) there's no reason to assume that the colour would remain the same, e.g. iron appears silvery, iron oxide can appear red/black, copper goes green when oxidised.
If you want an explaination of how the ink reacts with UV look into fluorescense.
Since PMMA is used to filter UV I'd view it as a reasonable assumption that it is stable under UV exposure and so the shell is not at risk of degrading and exposing the ink to the body. That said though I would be hesitant about exposure of the ink to a laser for laser tattoo removal as materials can behave VERY differently under the intense light of a laser than they do under more moderate levels of the same light.

Color/black UV inks are known to become colored in all lighting. Therefore, it might permanently appear as a regular tattoo.

As I've already stated the colour UV inks also have colour under normal light, and so will appear just like a normal tattoo except when viewed under a blacklight.

I'd also ignore much of the section on Application Tips, as from experience the blood from the tattoo tends to block the UV and so you can't get a clear view of how it will look once the bleeding has stopped and the blood has been reabsorbed/broken down. That it is thinner than normal inks may well be true but this does not seem to have been a noteable problem when I was getting tattoos with it.

Splinter

Reku wrote: »

I've 3 and have had no negative effects or reactions so far. If you get a white UV ink tattoo (standard white ink is the same I'd imagine) be aware that due to the absence of colour it will appear to take longer to head since the pigment will not hide the continued healing of the area the actual ink injections took place.

just a quick one, standard white ink is not the same, it shows quite dark under UV to be honest and does not glow (i have 2 forearm white tattoos)

Reku

Splinter wrote: »

just a quick one, standard white ink is not the same, it shows quite dark under UV to be honest and does not glow (i have 2 forearm white tattoos)

If you reread that section you'll see I was refering specifically to the healing process there, not behaviour under UV.

Splinter

sorry my apologies top class post though