Spookshow-baby-79 has been having some unusual problems with her white ink tattoos. They’re now a full nine months old, and are still not settled… You can see two more close-ups after the break and you can see that it goes through phases of “crocodile skin” and being covered in tiny blackheads which open up and bleed. Not fun, and I expect medical intervention will be required — when a tattoo doesn’t settle down after that long, it quite likely never will.
If anyone has any useful advice or experience, please do post it.
Comments
71 responses to “White Ink Healing Problems”
I have 6 white stars going from the nape of my neck around the right side to my chest. It took months for them to stop doing almost the exact same thing as the above pictures. (and worse!) Turns out I’m allergic to black hair dye. Every place my hair touched I would get a raised, itchy welt. I even have to be really careful not to let any water run down my skin when I wash my hair. It didn’t start to happen until I got the first white star a year and a half ago. (I have white in other tattoos but a very small amount) 6 months ago, when I got the other 5 stars, the problem got far worse. Not all of them are nice thick solid ones, some are thin lines similar to the thickness of the above piece. It was those that were effected the most. One of them is so scarred it looks like a brand (which is what most people think they are anyway.) At this point, I rarely get the little raised welts, but I’m extremely careful to not let my hair touch them, and not get any water on them when I wash my hair. My moisturizer has sunblock in it so they haven’t yellowed either. I’m definitely going to have more white ink done in the future. I love them, but I know that they’re going to be hard to heal because I refuse to stop dying my hair black. (Oh and if you look, all hair dyes say to do a patch test for allergies, but the black ones specifically say that you are more likely to have allergies if you have a tattoo. Awesome! haha)
My white ink looked like this immediately after it was done; it’s been only 5 weeks and it definitely doesn’t anymore.
Could this same design be tattooed over in a darker colour to cover it? (Though I suppose that wouldn’t get rid of her reaction to the white ink underneath…?)
Where on her body is this tattoo?
buggirl – I’ve actually seen that warning on red hair dyes too.
Me and my boyfriend specialise in white tattoo’s at our studio. I can say that white tattoo’s take a long time to heal and it can sometimes be up to 6 months before they actually settle down. When doing a white tattoo you do normally use more pressure than a normal tattoo and therefore scar the skin a little more. This reaction does look a bit odd though and i have not yet seen a reaction like this. Alot has to do with what type of cream she was using, for example we would definately not recommend using a cream with any anti bacterials in such as savlon. There are many things one must do when doing a white tattoo, from the tattooists side, as its not like doing a normal tattoo. Apply Vitamin E as often as possible, hopefully that will settle it down.
Thanks Shannon for featuring this, and thanks to everyone for comments / advice; it’s very much appreciated.
I used Bepanthane when this was new. It’s the only white ink I have, and it’s on the underside of my forearm. I have blackwork elsewhere which has always healed no problem at all. HC45 (as recommended by a tattooist) improved this slightly but as soon as I stopped applying it, the skin just broke out again. If it’s dry I put Body Shop Hemp Butter on it to prevent cracking.
A lot of people mistake it at first glance for scarification or branding; I’m tempted to fulfil this prophecy by picking at it until the ink is out 😛
On the up-side, it isn’t actually itchy or sore although it does feel quite hot sometimes, which makes me suspect an allergic reaction.
Thanks so much again for your supportive comments – I’ll experiment and let you know what, if anything, works!
buggirl if you cared for your tattoo’s so much you’d dye your hair a different color that you’re not allergic to – the tattoo’s are permanent, your hair will fall out eventually so you may aswell change it and make sure your tattoos stay in the best shape possible.
Gnap have great point.
I would say same thing,
you should do skin removal since it do not heal.
Im sure skin removal will bring good results.
Archetype – I do care for my tattoos very much, which is why I take so many precautions to keep my hair and the water that rinses out of it away from them. It took a while to figure out that the dye was causing the reaction, but since then I haven’t had any problems. My hair is just as important to me as my ink. It defines the way I look in a far more noticeable way than my tattoos do. I wouldn’t change either of them.
As someone with a lot of skin problems, she really needs to go see a dermatologist and get skin scrapings done, although it can take ages for the results to be confirmed. She could have developed an allergy to the cream/ointment that she was using or a myriad of other soaps etc (I have had this happen), and although the area around it was fine, the allergy can just occur in the area that was tattooed as it is the most susceptible.
Hasn’t some research also been done to shoe that tattoo pigments can set off certain allergies in people?
i have a slight allergy to white ink too, my small wrist tattoo and the white highlights on my calf piece itched like crazy for months after the rest of the tatt healed. but it was nowhere near as bad as this 🙁 poor girl, get some antihistamines for the allergy and some bio-oil for the scarring, hopefully it will be ok!
it looks like your body doesnt like the ink, my red star on my hand looked like that. it settled down after a while but it didnt take 9 months.
i have a collection of solid white ink, some on my hands and a bunch of snowflakes on my arm. i’ve found the softest areas of skin have healed in the same way. a thick layer of tissue sometimes develops and it stays itchy for around a month, no change of cream has made a difference but i’ve found within three months max the skin is at least settled and feels normal to the touch again.
it’s a completely different healing to all my colour tattoos. i still haven’t found a reason for it. 🙂
why didn’t she go see a doctor after a month?
kudos on not picking it though, I would have started scraping at it right away.
i’d go the scarification route, too – especially since it would get some of the same subtlety and hopefully rid her of the problem completely. i hope she comes out healthy and happy in the end.
My only guess is that a very cheap ink was used ? Or some sort of ink mixture ? But the blackheads are an obvious sign that your skin is trying to reject this ink..My only other guess is that it has something to do with lotions that you use.
Also to consider would be perfumes or types of bodywash could have irritated the skin or caused this reaction.
Thats all i’ve got.
I had my white paw tattoos featured on modblog a while back. (bodytwo maybe) I recently broke out in a massive allergic reaction to the ink after being under some stress. I’ve had about 8 hours worth of work on me in white ink and lets just say it’s really uncomfortable now. I’m constantly taking two different types of antihistames with some releif. Im scared to stop though. Sigh. Any extra info on white ink and allergies would be great. (email [email protected])
Iam :Twitter /Katherine
Fantaaastic design…hope it gets better eventually.
I have also found a white tattoo design that would like done but having seen this picture i am having second thoughts. I have noticed a post by Candice that she and her boyfriend specialise in white ink tattoos – where are you based? I am specifically looking for an artist in UK.
About two weeks ago I got a fox tattoo and I’m reacting the same way to the white ink.
I thoroughly disagree that a tattoo that hasn’t settled by 9 months never will. Guy Aichtison says in one of his dvds that tattoos take 6 months – 1 year to fully settle (i think he uses the word “digest”), under the most normal of circumstances.
I personally have had a few tattoos go through phases of unsettled, but eventually they all settled.
Many people are sensitive to the titanium dioxide in white pigments, and b/c there is so much of it in a solid white tattoo, it causes a more pronounced reaction in sensitive individuals. Anyone thinking of doing white (or any color, really) should have a spot done somewhere on their body that is not visible, for 2 reasons, 1.identify it as a possible allergen; although allergy can develop years later 2. how it most likely will look when healed. Then you can decide if you want to go forward. Find out what brand of white your artist will use, and look up the MSDS info of that brand which tells what is in the ink. Some of the major manufacturers are putting the MSDS online now. Some brands of white have more of a tendency to turn yellow, while others stay whiter. Laser won’t help b/c it can’t ‘see’ the target. Probably like many of you have said, if she likes the look, have a dermatologist remove the white and by doing that, it will be like a scarification. I am currently starting to do the white tattoos, and I will do the spot testing, I am going to try the top 3 brands recommended for the whitest whites (Dynamic, Starbrite, Mom’s) and choose the one that I have the best results with. I think it enhances the white line if a shadow line is put beside it, in a soft shade of pink or lavender. I would also like to try a dot of lavender in my white for clients with darker skin, simply to cancel out the brown melanin in their natural skin tone, then I can shadow beside the white line with a lavender or pink to make the white stand out a bit more. This would make the white appear more gray as opposed to yellow. The prob with a shadow line is possible mixing with the white, so it would be better to put shadow color in first, let it heal in, and encapsulate (the body immediately tries to get rid of a foreign body like ink; the particles are too large for macrophages to carry away, so the body encapsulates the particles in the dermal layer). One thing to keep in mind though, the dermis is a living layer, and due to the turnover of cells, shifts with age, so that’s why tattoos seem to blur with age, they are shifted a bit with the natural regeneration of our tissues over time. Tattoo ink is a pigment (make sure the artist uses a reputable ink from an authorized distributor- on ebay you find knock offs that are terrible cheap ink from other sources, very dangerous-) mixed with a ‘carrier’ solution like alcohol, glycerine, etc. If you put the shadow in first, you avoid the prob with the stencil (purple) contaminating the white. It allows time for the body to encapsulate the shadow color, and the carrier agent is absorbed. The purple stencil is washed completely off after the session, and any remaining has a month to be worn off the epidermis. Then after a month or complete healing of the shadow line, the white can be easily put in and the artist has a clean design outline, the likelyhood of the white being mixed with other pigment particles is lessened, although with time, they may shift around and mix on the edges of the pigments where they meet in the dermis due to the natural turnover of skin cells). Just another note to consider, the large solid parts of a design are not pretty in white, lacy designs, any type of linear design looks the best. If the body rejects part of a white line, the artist can add white later after skin is healed, but remember every time you have it re-tattooed, scarring is a likelyhood with each successive time. I hope this helps, much of it is theory, as I have yet to experiment with the white tattoo. I think they are beautiful, and I wanted to do them, so I will have to let you all know the results of my trials. I have already done white pearls, and they turned out beautiful, so it gave me confidence to tackle the difficulties of white tattooing. Also please do your research, as no pigment is approved for use under the skin- having said that, I do have a tattoo myself, but I made an informed decision about it and chose the risks of putting a foreign body under my skin. Traditionally, black was simply carbon, with a carrier agent, but modern ink can contain all sorts of stuff, like mercury lead, other metals, plastics. There are some lines of vegan inks, but I hear there are allergic reactions to even those. It seems cadmium red & yellow are likely to cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. I wish it would be researched, which ingredients are not safe long-term, and Europe is much stricter than the U.S. Also the sun’s radiation and laser can change the color & composition of pigments into something dangerous & harmful to our bodies, possibly even carcinogenic. Hope this is a helpful comment to you all.
A white girl keloid. My theory is the soft sensitive skin that takes white well keeps creating a callouse. Not necessarily damage done by the tattoo artist, but the amount of polymers that tend to be used in the best brands of white pigments on the market these days. The thicker molicules create a callouse from the inside out. You treat it like you want a thick scar to thin out. Lots of lotion, n pinch n roll like you’re scratching your nuts through your pocket :). Hope i helped.
Hi! Im bernard from the philippines. I have a problem regarding my 14 days old colored tattoo at the upper arm with some white ink, which is now healed i think (means already peeled) some white part of my tattoo did not settle down as if just still my skin color, but when it was still fresh tattoo ghe white color was visible and vibrant. My tattoo artist already seen my tattoo and he just told me for free touch up after another 4 weeks time. I really follow the aftercare, but still resulted to this, can anyone explain to me what possible happened. Thanks a lot anyway.