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Although they’ve been around for many years now, UV tattoos, also known as black light tattoos, have been growing in popularity, both among club goers craving attention, and tattoo lovers wanting to make their traditional ink stand out in certain conditions. And then there is the third category, the people who want to keep their ink virtually invisible in their day to day life, only to showcase it in all its glory under ultraviolet light. Whatever the case, there are a few interesting things you should know about this intriguing tattoos.

People who ink may be in for more than just body art.. “I got tattooed during a time in my life when I wasn’t fully informed about what was going into my body or what I was allowing onto my skin. Back then, it was about art, self-expression, and creative identity.” “Today, I see it differently. Tattoos are not harmless,” Ellie Grey a book author, .. Like Grey, many people choose to get tattoos as self-expression, acts of remembrance, or transformation. But even when the meaning runs deep, tattoos can have consequences—some only now coming to light. The Link Between...

A new study has discovered that tattoo inks could be linked to cancer or organ failure. An analysis of 54 inks commonly used in tattoo parlors across America has uncovered that a staggering 45 of them contained unlisted additives, including chemicals known to pose alarming health risks. Multiple inks contained 2-phenoxyethanol, which can cause toxic effects in high doses. Researchers involved in the study found the most common additive to be polyethylene glycol, which is a compound that can cause acute renal failure. The study was led by Jonn Swierk from the Department of Chemistry at Binghamton University, and was...

Recently, European scientists bombarded tattooed corpses with X-rays from a particle accelerator. While it could have been a scene for an upcoming goth body horror movie, it was actually a study meant to benefit living humans with tattoos. This grisly experiment helped European nanoparticle researchers understand how tattoo ink travels in human bodies over time. In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports on Tuesday, a team of French and German researchers reports that nanoparticles found in some tattoo inks can migrate away from the skin — and accumulate in lymph nodes.