Skin | Bring Up Science

There is something rightly empowering with modifying our own appearance. It could be a way to have our body match our assumed identity or to make ourselves more attractive. It could be a form of communication, or it could be used as a mask to hide your true identity. Whatever the reasons are for our physiological modifications, most of us will succumb to its appeal at one point or another. However, not all changes are permanent; some may even be very much short-lived. From all of the possible alterations we can do to our bodies – makeups, hair dyes, cosmetic surgeries, and tattoos are the most common.

Whereas makeup typically doesn’t last for more than 24 hours, hair dyes have a more long-lasting effect. However, those effects never outlast the permanence of cosmetic surgeries and tattoos, which last practically forever. So, we may conclude that some physical changes are better than others, but that may entirely depend on what you are looking to accomplish. The more ephemeral a modification is, the more you need to maintain it. For instance, makeup needs to be reapplied every day for the change to persist; for tattoos, once completed, you can pretty much forget about them entirely. Yet, if you’re about to get your body permanently altered, you may want to care more about the final result. Spending fewer bucks on cheap cosmetic surgeries and tattoos might be a sure way to regret your sudden leap of faith. I would say that for tattoos and cosmetic surgeries, it is for sure true that quality comes at a cost.

Once you decide to get your tattoo done and the final result isn’t to your satisfaction, you may have to live with the consequences for a very long period. Yet, until you save enough money to cover the expenses for the cover-up. You should probably also consider that the total cost for both, the initial tattoo and the cover-up, may even exceed the price tag associated with the better quality tattoo. So, rushing into an everlasting transformation is not recommended. The tattoos should be well-thought, well-designed, sufficiently funded, and made by an expert tattoo artist. Additionally, one thing to consider is that a good and experienced tattoo artist may be better able to advise you on the best positioning of your art. Depending on our pain tolerance and the size of the art piece, your artist may choose to displace the tattoo to a less sensitive spot or reduce the size of the tattoo. They will also account for the stretching of the skin that occurs due to ageing. Some parts may be more affected than others, and it may be worth considering avoiding those spots for more detail-oriented tattoos, like portraits.

Expert tattoo artists may also be better at informing you about your tattoo after-care and its healing process. They also may be more knowledgeable in a wider range of needle techniques and, as such, should be better at producing different styles, such as watercolour and impressionism. Since they have been exposed to more work, they can often help you capture your vision in greater detail. That being said, you may have to look further than your neighbourhood to find the perfect artist for you. They all master their own style that differs from one individual to the next. So, the most important factors here are your budget and your artist. The way you define and choose both will greatly impact the art that you’ll be wearing for the rest of your days.

Choosing what to include in your tattoo is no easy task. It took me about three years to think about how I would like my first tattoo to be. I absolutely don’t regret having waited for that long. The final product captured the entirety of my vision. However, there is one thing I would have done differently, choosing my tattoo artist. Sadly, the one I chose at the moment was a novice with barely any work under his belt. The design was quite simple, and as such, I didn’t think I would need someone with much more experience to ink me. Unfortunately, I was proven quite wrong. The drawing had a yin yang symbol, and it turns out that small circles are pretty challenging to draw correctly, according to this experience. The small circle located in the white part is not a circle but an imperfect oval. An attempt to correct this issue only made the circle look more like a small cloud than anything else.

Even though the tattoo didn’t exactly turn out the way I was expecting, I do not regret it. The symbolism I wanted is integrated despite its unperfect look, and it is still pretty satisfying. Yet, while I was having my first tattoo done, I was wondering how they were made and how the ink got to stay in the skin. What also surprised me, later on, was the rate at which the ink was bleaching. There are already a few things we know. For instance, we know that ink is injected into the skin via needles. Something we may probably ignore, however, is how deeply the needles need to penetrate to create a lasting tattoo. If the ink is inserted into the more superficial skin layer, the epidermis, the ink will be shed away along with the dead skin. Thus, to create a permanent tattoo, artists need to inject the ink in the dermis, located under the epidermis.

Interestingly, ink is not composed of pigments having all the same size. Some will actually be microscopic. Hence, they can be absorbed by phagocytes which are in charge of cleaning foreign particles. In this instance, the ink is a foreign particle as it is not present in your body before its injection. Only the ink fragments that are big enough will stay undigested as the phagocytes cannot swallow them. From this statement, we can now understand why tattoos appear to become much lighter after their first couple of days. Yet, you must be warned that exposure to sun rays may help break down the ink into smaller fragments and facilitate their elimination. Thus, exposing your tattoos directly under the sunlight will, over time, cause them to fade. A solution may be to apply sunscreen regularly, especially if you’re about to go outdoors for extended periods with your inks uncovered. Despite that, there exist some people who struggle remembering to put on sunscreen. I, for sure, am one of them. Nonetheless, I have recently decided to apply more willpower in my quest to use sunscreen more often. I know that skin protection is not only essential to preserve your body art, it is also necessary to protect your skin from developing cancers.

In all cases, your inks are no longer as permanent as they once were thought to be. Ink removal techniques are becoming much less invasive and much more affordable. The most effective technique for tattoo removal is surgery which is the most invasive method. It involves cutting out the tattoo entirely and stitching the skin back together. Another technique – that is gaining ground – is laser tattoo removal treatments which replicate the same processes as the sunlight. The laser breaks down the ink fragments into smaller ones and then lets the phagocytes do the rest. This technique requires many sessions to erase most of the tattoo, but often the thickest line remains visible, at least in relief ‒because of the scarring.

Thus, regardless of the increased accessibility surrounding removal techniques, we shouldn’t be careless when choosing our next body art. It doesn’t matter if you decide to ink yourself for an aesthetical reason or symbolic reason; we should all be attentive to the whole process it involves. It is critical to know that the cost related to tattoo removal is a lot more expensive than the cost of the original tattoo. In the end, it is better to pay more for something you’ll keep enjoying than doing something impulsively and correcting it later.

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