Multi.Colored—tattooed people, tattoo dreams

A lot of people get their start in body art by drawing on their own skin with ballpoint pens (or having their more artistic friends draw on them). I had a little flower drawn in green ballpoint ink on the inside of my left ankle for several years. I’d just re-draw it every time it got washed off. My daughter had an extremely elaborate abstract pattern on her arm when she was in high school–apparently that was a good way to fill time in boring classes.

I recently read a post on the about.com tattoo/bodypiercing forums (a link to their home page is under “resources” on the right) whose son had actually tattooed himself with a ballpoint pen. The parent’s concern was whether ballpoint ink was toxic; the kid’s was that after he put the ink on himself he decided he didn’t like it. (It is said that a person who represents himself or herself in court has a fool for a client; seems that some people who tattoo themselves have fools for artists, too.)

From everything I have read, ballpoint ink used in the USA is not toxic, but nowadays who knows where the ink is actually manufactured? I sure wouldn’t want to take a chance on ink manufactured in China out of who knows what kind of industrial waste. It might be OK for a temporary design on top of the skin, but injected into the skin? No WAY. Ballpoint ink is pigment dissolved in solvent, and you’d have to be nuts to want solvent punched into your skin.

And there doesn’t seem to be any consensus about whether ballpoint ink can be laser-removed like tattoo ink. The pigments are different. There’s the solvent to consider. It may well be that this particular adolescent folly is there for good. If the kid hates it now while he’s still in school, just think how he’ll feel about it later when he (presumably) grows up.

I think this is yet another example of why people should think before they ink!

photo credit: awrose

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The last post about crystal tattoos got me to thinking about temporary tattoos in general.

Temporary tattoos have a long and glorious history. The art of mehndi has been practiced for thousands of years in India, adjacent countries and the Middle East. Henna paste is applied to the skin in elaborate patterns, allowed to dry, and then washed off, leaving stains on the skin which slowly fade over time. Creating original designs is a true art form, but nowadays we can apply our own henna designs with a bit of patience and a steady hand.

Other ancient people painted their skin with woad, red ochre, and other natural colors to make semi-permanent or truly temporary body art. While woad-it-yourself kits aren’t exactly a hot seller these days, you can buy body paint like TempTu (with or without patterns for tattoo designs) and paint yourself any color you like–at least to the capacity of the small jars in the kit. Amazon lists all kinds of interesting possibilities if you do a search with the term “body paint.”

When I was a kid, temporary tattoos were of the lick-and-stick comic-character variety. As you can imagine, the image quality produced by a thin sheet of tissue paper moistened with saliva and plastered on your arm was… um, not exactly stellar. Nowadays, we have a lot more choices. I knew that tattoos had finally made the mainstream when I discovered a store selling temporary tattoos right across from the ferris wheel in Disneyland California Adventure.

You can also buy software to design your own tattoos (and special paper to print your designs on). These seem mostly aimed at kids, but there’s nothing to say you can’t dump the Hot Wheels motifs and make your own.

Making a temporary tattoo is a great way to try out the size, color, and placement of ink you’re considering making permanent. I’m seriously considering having a bracelet done, and I want to make sure that’s what I really want before I take the plunge.

There’s still time to do a lot of exploring and a lot of painting!

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Our local paper, the Los Angeles Daily News, tends to be conservative. Which is why I was so surprised to see a small item in their “LA.COM” section titled “Tattoos as Fine Art.”

It wasn’t, alas, a glowing review of local tattoo parlors, but it’s nearly as good. Ziba Beauty is now featuring a line of “jewel tattoos” (self adhesive designs with brilliant crystals) that are based on traditional designs from India. The pictures on the web site are really spectacular.

So if you’re looking for something way out of the ordinary to wear to that holiday party, a great place to start is here.

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