UV Tattoo's in the free Metro

Ag marbh

Hi,

Nothing major to report but there's a short space in this mornings metro about UV tattoos and shows a picture of very well done arm pieces.

"UV tattoo's are the latest craze sweeping across the US and Canada, allowing the more demure to permanetly mark themselves but only show off their designs when the lights go out"

No scanner in work so can't get the picture!

garthv

Aye saw that myself,

Maybe it'll finally bring decent UV inks on the market

Blub2k4

GaRtH_V wrote:

Maybe it'll finally bring decent UV inks on the market

The main problem is that you'll never find a "decent" (for decent read safe for human use) substance in nature that phosphoresces, such be the way of phosphorescence that it is radiation. The original inks were normally just ink with some radon or whatever mixed through, these go brown with time and some cause major skin reactions.
The Chameleon inks may be safe, the nasty stuff is contained in small plastic beads, do these break down over time in the body and release their noxious substances, too many unknowns, and the knowns are nasty to bother with this ****? Hopefully it will never get beyond a niche fad.

amazingemmet

Also tat picture is a bad rip of one thats already in the bme gallery:O

Reku

Blub2k4 wrote:

The Chameleon inks may be safe, the nasty stuff is contained in small plastic beads, do these break down over time in the body and release their noxious substances, too many unknowns, and the knowns are nasty to bother with this ****? Hopefully it will never get beyond a niche fad.

Those beads would be the only bit which would concern me in the slightest as they don't give enough details as to what they're made of, but if people in the US have been busily ingesting them with no law suits yet I guess they can't be too toxic (though they are a nation that encourages the use of Angel Dust...).

Blub2k4 wrote:

The main problem is that you'll never find a "decent" (for decent read safe for human use) substance in nature that phosphoresces, such be the way of phosphorescence that it is radiation. The original inks were normally just ink with some radon or whatever mixed through, these go brown with time and some cause major skin reactions.

As I've said in another topic on this; if you look at your skin with a black-light (UV lamp) you might actually be surprised at all the pigments that don't show up in normal light, perfect example for me being a bright hi-lighter glow orange in some of my pores. This could be due to anything from being completely normal to perhaps a specific chemical in a item of processed food/drink I eat/drink, perhaps the soap I use, maybe the detergent for my clothes, damned if I know. I've been like this for years and no ill effects to date and the only reason I'd even know was that I own a black light and was testing it out up in my room (just happened to notice the bits on my skin) so I wouldn't be surprised if many others have this particular chemical on their body and are just unaware of it.

The UV inks aren't phosphorescent, they're fluorescent, otherwise they'd continue to glow long after you exposed them to UV (think glow in the dark stickers versus the reflector strips cyclists wear).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorescence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent

And fluorescent inks are already used in medicine anyway.

Radon in an ink should have panic lights flashing for anyone as this is in fact radioactive beyond just photons, but phosphorescence doesn't mean dangerous as if so you'd best stop using detergent on your clothes, any whitening toothpaste, etc... as it's not just bleach these products rely on.

Point is that you can't just say that all things that glow are bad (dumbed down but still I feel is the essence as what you've said).