A chemist's breakdown of what's inside commercial tattoo ink: pigment chemistry, carrier solvents, additive safety profiles, and which ingredients have the longest track record in human dermal tissue.
What the full article covers
Every commercial tattoo ink contains three functional groups: colourants, carriers, and additives. Understanding each group is the difference between brand loyalty and ingredient-level safety.
Carbon black, titanium dioxide, and copper phthalocyanine have the longest dermal safety records. Azo pigments that degrade into carcinogenic aromatic amines under UV light are the class to watch.
Carriers like glycerine and distilled water are low-risk. Isopropyl alcohol and propylene glycol show wide variance in purity across manufacturers, and that variance matters inside a dermal wound.
The EU's REACH regulation and the Annex XVII tattoo ink restriction have changed what can legally be sold in Europe. US inks face no equivalent federal pre-market review.
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First published on poliinternational.com. This is a summary of the original engineering article.
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