Originally Posted by Goody303
My primary questions are about tattoo ink, powder pigments and pre dispersed.
I've been tattooing for 5 years. I started off using Stable color, then got into trying different brands, or at least different colors from different brands that went in easier.
I tried Moms 14 karat Gold. What I tattooed healed weird and it was difficult to get in anyway so I didn't use it again. Then I bought Intenze cherry bomb red I think it's called and one the oranges. I got a similar outcome. The red just plain sucked and I stopped use immediately. The orange healed weird as well, too a long time and then had small bumps in it.
When I saw these reactions which I never experienced with Stable, I opened up the cap and smelled the Moms and Intenze. They smelled so bad and toxic, I poured them out and when I was trying to rinse the bottles, there was some sort of residue, kind of oily. It was like sludge, sticking to the wall of the bottle. Took me like 40 minutes to empty one 2 oz. bottle!
Then I got a primary color set from Dynamic except for yellow, I got Starbrite. Then I got Dermaglo white, red, yellow, magenta and blue because a close fellow artist swore by it, with 18 years of tattooing.
I've had nothing but GREAT results with all colors from Dynamic and Dermaglo. They go in super easy, heal well and I haven't had any reactions. I even started to tattoo faster which was great for me and the client.
PROBLEM!!
I'm in a new shop where they only use powder pigment from Freedom or United. They've informed me that nearly all of the inks have plastic/polymers and carcinogens. This includes Dynamic and Dermaglo among numerous others. These are pre dispersed, so what about those other surfactants, dissolving, dispersing agents? What are they???
I heard from a very reliable source that Dynamic ink is a water based ink bought in 5 gallon pails, then diluted with your standard glycerin, alcohol or witch hazel.
The ink starts out as pigment like all inks do, but is mixed with other 'things' making it a concentrated liquid. The original Dynamic Ink company was ink used for printing on boxes. I can't confirm any of this, or my sources but believe me, I'm the last person that wants to believe it could be true.
As far as the plastic, I'm experiencing it on a personal level. I've spent close to ten grand over the last three years getting a back piece with all the color by hand. It's been two years since the color is healed and I have tiny bumps all over the blue scales and the belly is raised. The whole color part of the tattoo is shiny. Even though the design is amazing, the color is outstanding and bright as you could possibly put in, these bumps won't go away. They don't itch, so it's not a reaction. Other artist's have looked at it and say it's scaring, done too deep, but there's no white shiny scaring. It's just raised, like I had tiny implants. My whole back feels like brail! It's gorgeous but what is this in me?!
Anyone, please give me feedback on this. How can we be using toxic ink?
I'm going back to powder and I'll go slower like I used to. I've been told that if you know how to work with powder, nothing compares to the results. I've heard good things about Waverly, I'll try them as well as Freedom.
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12-12-2009, 10:03 AM
Re: powder pigments vs pre dispersed
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