When investigating the process of tattoo removal, we must first
consider actual tattoos. This chapter investigates the history and origins
of the tattoo process. Questions such as what are tattoos made of and
whether the tattoo inks employed are safe for the human body and FDA (Food
and Drug Administration) approved are asked. The reader is also shown what
is involved with the actual process of tattooing.
Tattooing has been around since the dawn of time itself. Various
cultures worldwide have been marking themselves indelibly for centuries.
It has served a purpose of both decoration, for status and tribal
affiliation, and for punishment or to denote a lower social status.1
In Japan, great bodysuits (Irezumi) adorned the skins of some of the greatest
Japanese heroes, and some of their designs are still used today (although the
act of getting tattooed with these bodysuits has assumed a negative status
since mostly Yakuza, or Japanese organized crime, are the only ones who get
them).2 Tattooing made its way to the West very slowly, owing much of its
insurgeance in Europe to Captain James Cook and his explorations into the
South Pacific and Polynesia in the eighteenth century.3 With its popularity
waxing and waning, tattooing has now made a resurgence once more as a popular
endeavor, with an estimated 10 million Americans (5% of the population of the
United States) bearing at least one tattoo.4
A tattoo is composed of indelible ink introduced subcutaneously into
a subject's epidermis (or, for the layman, permanent ink is implanted into
the skin). The ancient Polynesians and Japanese used handheld bamboo shoots
and needle clusters to accomplish this. Today, a tattoo machine is typically
employed for this manner, whereupon its reciprocating motor punctures the
skin between 0.6 mm and 2.2 mm.
[figure 2.1]
The ink particles diffuse into the tissues
and are absorbed, and the ink is deposited.5,6
The tattoo ink itself is
composed of a solution that uses 80% alcohol with a "collodial dispersion of
the following pigments: titanium dioxide USP XX (Pharbita), iron oxide I and
II, iron dioxide I and II, iron hydroxide I, II, and III, and tartrazine."7
The ink is considered a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and adverse reactions to the ink are minimal.8 Normally, foreign
bodies are attacked and removed from the body by the natural defense
mechanism of macrophage activity, but the particles of tattoo ink are too
large (147-180 um) for the macrophages to affect significantly.9
2.1 Introduction
2.2 History of Tattooing
2.3 What is a Tattoo?