There are a number of misconceptions about how tattoos are applied and heal in the skin and I’m here to clear those up for you once and for all. The mechanics and biology of tattooing are pretty cool when you get down to the cellular level and understand how the body receives and responds to the process of tattooing and the tattoo ink itself. Through understanding the body and tattooing you can best prepare and heal yourself for your next tattoo process.
Check out our complete TATTOO PRECARE AND AFTERCARE Guide here.
So let’s start from the moment the needles pierce the epidermis of the skin (the top layer) and reach the Dermis (second layer of skin) where the ink is then injected. Which, technically speaking, isn’t injected in the way you might think. Ink is actually deposited into the skin through a puncture and vacuum process created when the needle retracts out of the skin and negative pressure is made, sucking the ink from the skin’s surface into the tiny pierced holes. Tattoo ink is deposited into the dermis layer of skin because, unlike the epidermis which sheds, the dermis is stable, allowing the ink to stay long-term.
Once the ink is in the dermis the body recognizes the ink as a foreign substance and responds by sending immune cells, called macrophages, to “clean it up”. The macrophages do this by engulfing the pigment particles and attempting to destroy and carry them away to be processed by our lymphatic system. Fortunately for us and for the craft of tattooing, pigment particles are too large for the macrophages to destroy, so they become trapped in the dermis. These macrophages eventually die, releasing the pigment, only for new macrophages to respond and engulf them again. This is a lifelong repeating cycle known as Phagocytosis.
Although your tattoo is healed and locked in, there are still forces (like UV rays / sun exposure) that can break down the pigments over time. Pigment degradation leads to blurred or migrated work. This is also the science behind laser tattoo removal, which works by breaking down the ink particles with the laser so they are small enough for the macrophages to carry away and processed through the lymphatic system.
- Lee Rose
