Análisis del recall acumulado

Tattoo inks are generally composed of a colorant and auxiliary ingre-dients. Colorants are generally pigments or dyes. A pigment is a finely divided colored substance that imparts color effects when mixed with another material. When a pigment is mixed or ground in a liquid vehi-cle, it does not dissolve but remains dispersed or suspended in the liquid (Mayer, 1991, p. 29). Pigment classifications include inorganic or mineral pigments, and organic pigments, which include vegetable, animal, and synthetic pigments. In general, pigments derived from natural sources are less permanent than the average synthetic color while synthetic organic pigments are characterized by great brilliance and intensity. Many of them are permanent but others, particularly the older ones, are fugitive and tend to fade or disappear over time (Mayer, 1991, p. 31). The chemical purity of pigments varies greatly. Some are simple, almost pure compounds while others of equally high quality contain minor components either as natural impurities or as the result of ingredients added during manufacture to modify the color or pigment properties (Mayer, 1991, p. 33). Permanence treatment is defined as resistance to fading. This fading usually occurs through exposure to ultraviolet radiation or sunlight which contributes to the photodecomposition of the pigment. A dye is a colored substance that dissolves in liquid and imparts its color effects to materials by staining or being absorbed (Mayer, 1991, p. 29).

An ink is generally defined as a liquid that contains pigment or dye.

Often it is in solution in which the solute and solvent are uniformly dis-tributed, producing a homogeneous mixture. A tattoo ink is a suspension of pigment particles in a solution. Although considered a solution, the pur-pose of the liquid is most often to act as a vehicle to facilitate introduction of the pigment particles into the skin. As such, the liquid portion of the tattoo ink is meant to evaporate or dissipate into the tissue when deposited on and into the skin (Figure 4.1). Tattoo inks contain a variety of auxiliary ingredi-ents, which include the vehicle, the solvent, and additives. Additives may be wetting agents, preservatives, stabilizers, thickeners, and pH regulators. In addition to tattoo inks, which are premixed liquids, powder solids are also encountered. These require the addition of liquid component which is often done by the tattooist.

Liquid Composition of Tattoo Inks

Liquid components of tattoo inks have varied throughout time. According to Parry, in the modern electric method, the dry coloring pigment was mixed with water, alcohol, cocoa oil, or saliva; only the black color came as a ready-made ink (Parry, 1933b, p. 46). Current professional inks vary with regard to their ingredients. Vehicles, or carriers, may be composed of one or more of the following: water, alcohol (ethanol, isopropanol), glycerin, glycerol, hama-melis (witch hazel), and propylene glycol. The additives may vary as well:

wetting agents include glycerin and ethylene glycol; preservatives include benzoic acid; stabilizers include barium sulfate; and thickeners include glyc-erin. In addition, there may be substances present that facilitate the adhesion of the pigment particles to the needle. Other materials that may be encoun-tered in the liquid composition of the tattoo inks include methanol, glutaral-dehyde, detergents, and benzoates.

Homemade tattoo inks, in which a liquid is added to the powder pigment to create an ink, may incorporate the use of Listerine (which can be used as a thinning agent), vodka, propylene glycol, glycerin, or witch hazel. According to Cohen, “… Listerine was used by tattooists to suspend the pigments used to tattoo. Before the recent reformulation of Listerine, it contained a small amount phenol, or carbolic acid, which is a potent bacteriostatic agent. Other components of Listerine acted as wetting agents … The wetting agent’s pri-mary function was to keep insoluble pigment particles suspended in a vehi-cle which was innocuous to the skin … Glycerine (just a few drops) could be used prevent drying out of the colour jars and as an emulsifying agent”

(Cohen, 1994, p. 272). Cohen goes on to discuss the formulation of colors, Figure 4.1 Green tattoo ink spot on white paper, demonstrating the separation of the pigment and a portion of the liquid component.

“Dry D&C approved color pigments are mixed with pure were 70% isopropyl alcohol (easily obtainable rubbing alcohol without any additive ingredients such as methyl salicylate or methanol). Several drops of pure glycerine are added by some artists at this point (others use rosewater and glycerine in equal parts). Sterile distilled water may be added later for thinning” (Cohen, 1994). Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins reports that the dry powder pigments are mixed with an antiseptic solution of alcohol and water with zephiran chloride. Some have used liquefied phenol as an additive (Collins, 2004, p. 6).

More amateur tattoo inks, such as those that are made in prison, may use saliva, shampoo, water, or urine as a liquid component.

Pigment Composition of Tattoo Inks

The ideal pigments for tattoo inks are those that exhibit selective absorption and scattering of light, are chemically stable as well as light and heat stable.

The historical evolution of pigments has seen a shift from natural to synthetic and inorganic to organic. Most of this evolution has been due to experimen-tation by tattooists.

Homemade Tattoo Inks

Amateur tattoo inks, characterized as those that are homemade and prison-made, have incorporated ballpoint pen inks, ink recovered from a print shop or hobby class, such as India ink, as well as the soot collected from burned utensils and plastic materials. “Criminal tattoos are usually blue; multicol-ored tattoos have only recently appeared. Originally the ink was homemade a mixture of soot, sugar, ashes, and urine. The most common way of applying a tattoo was to bind three or four sewing, or syringe, needles to a match with a thread. Sometimes, Staples or shortened paperclips were used. Another method involved a plank with needles arranged to form the desired design … Today ink from a ballpoint pen is used instead. An electric shaver can easily be fashioned into a tattoo machine” (A. Sidorov in Baldev, 2012c, p. 379).

“For the ink, (the prisoners) burn a candle against the cement ceiling and scrape off the soot, or they burn toilet paper and crumble the ashes in water.

Either way they get pure carbon, which is after all the basis for the professional tattooist’s black ink. Neither this pure carbon, however, or ordinary “India”

ink is stabilized with the addition of iron oxide, and consequently turns blue after a little while” (Steward, 1990, p. 72). The use of drawing and writing inks such as Indian ink, Pelican ink, and printer inks have also been reported (De Cuyper, 2008, p. 18). “In Danish prisons, tattoo colors and instruments

are forbidden. However, some prisoners constructed tattooing instruments by mounting steel needles on electric shavers. Owing to the lack of stan-dard pigments, the prisoners improvised, viz, they used a paint that is used for posters, for hobby crafts and for decoration” (Schmidt and Christensen, 1978, p. 965). The poster paints used for hobby work in this prison were scar-let and dark green. According to Schmidt and Christensen, the scarscar-let paint contained Pigment Reds 3, 4, and 95 and the dark green paint contained Pigment Yellow 1, Pigment Green 7, and Pigment Blue 15. Furthermore, they report that both paints contained chalk, dolomite, and casein as binders and the preservative chlormetacresol (Schmidt and Christensen, 1978).

Additional ingredients found in homemade tattoo inks may include resi-due from burning an object such as paper, a Styrofoam^TM cup, plastic cutlery, a toothbrush, a plastic chess piece, or any plastic object that could be melted to generate black sooty material (Figure 4.2). Also reported was the use of ash from a cigarette. Ink from a writing implement such as a pen or Sharpie marker, shoe polish or shoe soles, or powdered pigment have also been used.

The solution, or liquid portion of the homemade ink, may be made up of a combination of water, saliva, shampoo, witch hazel, vodka, Listerine mouth-wash which, according to the MSDS sheet contains ethanol, eucalyptol, thymol, menthol, methyl salicylate, benzoic acid, sodium hydroxide, hydro-chloric acid, and water. Glycerin, propylene glycol(s), rubbing alcohol, and nail polish remover (acetone) can also be commonly employed in homemade tattoo inks. The inks are typically introduced into the skin by crude methods using glass, pins, razor blades, paper clips, staples, metal coils, or light bulb filaments. The basic process is to burn the plastic/paper-based material and collect the smoke in or on a material held above it (such as a bottle cap or foil). The resultant sooty residue is collected and mixed with the suspend-ing liquid (soap, water, alcohol, etc.) and then applied into the skin ussuspend-ing the injection tool.

Cup Vaseline Wick (can be made from a dry mop strand)

The smoke that will collect on the surface (black soot)

Object to collect smoke

(metal; material that will not melt)

Figure 4.2 A drawing made by a tattooist being held in a detention facility; here he is demonstrating the process of obtaining the soot used as the pigment por-tion of tattoo ink made while incarcerated. After scraping off the residue, it is combined with hot water and shampoo (C.P., personal communication).

Professional Tattoo Inks

Professional inks, or those that are used by “official” tattoo artists, have undergone quite an extensive evolution from natural plant-based materi-als to mineral pigments and more recently to synthetic organic pigments. In Bolton’s 1897 article, the reader gains some insight into the status of colors and types of inks being employed in tattooing at the end of the nineteenth century. Of the Japanese tattooist Hori Chyo, Bolton describes his greatest discovery as the use of the third color brown in addition to the regulation blue-black and vermilion (n.p.). He also describes the practices of sailors, who, for the purpose of identification in case of death by drowning, pricked gunpowder into their arms and the back of their hands, then touched it with a lighted match to produce a scar (n.p.).

According to Parry, by the 1930s, the pigments used by the original tattooist were vermilion, gunpowder, India ink, and indigo (Parry, 1933b, p. 147). Ebensten reports, that by the 1950s,

Colours in use are chiefly blue-black and red. The blue-black, actually per-fectly black but appearing with the bluish tint when under the skin, is by far the most commonly used and may be made of a large variety of ingredients:

lamp black, indigo, Chinese ink, gunpowder, animal or vegetable ash, soot, coal dust, and even the deposit scraped from the insides of pipes … Red is made of carmine, iron oxide, brick dust or other materials … Other colours are usually made out of a mixture of inks. Viridian green and brown are fairly common; yellow is considered the most difficult colour as it may cause a blister under the skin when exposed to the sun … Most tattooists work in a blue-black, red and one or two other colors. It is rare to find a tattooist who employs up to ten shades, all of which may be made out of five basic colours. In Japan, thirty two shades are known and in use. Colours are mostly dry and mixed with water, alcohol, special oils or saliva. The blue-black is often supplied in liquid form, ready for use, but more generally each tattooist will mix his own colours according to his own secret and closely guarded formula (Ebensten, 1954, p. 94).

In another note regarding tattoo pigments and the tattooist, Reiter states, Other important progressions in tattooing came with the development of pigments … the stability and longevity of these pigments in the skin in turn played a role in the reputation of the tattooer. A brilliant tattoo kept customers coming back. [Amund] Deitzel and a few others understood the importance of this and strived to find the best available pigments. These findings were also some of the most coveted … With only a basic understanding of these com-pounds, results could only be had by trial and error. Like-minded tattooers sometimes traded pigment manufacturer and code. And within these transac-tions was also a code of ethics. When handed privileged information, you kept

it to yourself and only passed it on with permission of the originator. Those who did not follow this were quickly excluded (Reiter, 2011, p. 181).

Samuel O’Reilly settled in New York in 1875 and became a tattoo artist at 11 Chatham Square in the Bowery (Figure 4.3). He described himself as a

“professor,” as many tattoo artists later did as well, and referred to tattoos as tattaugraphs. In the late 1800s, O’Reilly “expanded the choice of materials till it included such old and new stuff as powdered charcoal, finely powdered brick-dust, coal-dust, lamp black, Prussian blue, washing blue, gunpowder, cinnabar, ordinary writing ink, China ink, India ink and other vegetable inks” (Parry, 1933b, p. 45). In the early 1900s, it was reported that tattooists Amund Dietzel and William Grimshaw were tattooing with carbon black, China red, Casali’s green, and Prussian blue (Reiter, 2011, p. 8). It was also reported that Dietzel was using a yellow color of which the chemical compo-sition is unknown. In a letter from Dietzel to Paul Rogers dated 1962, Dietzel writes

I am sending you a jar of a new yellow. It’s very pure. Mix very easy, don’t raise, non-toxic. This is a straight yellow, too light alone, as you just add a pinch of red to it and it makes a nice yellow shade and not expensive. I find it better than any yellow I ever used. It will mix in plain water. My chemist friend got it for me … I make mine a deep yellow now and it looks good in the skin (Morse, 1977, p. 22).^*

*The color could have been an arylide yellow (“Hansa Yellow”), which was synthesized in the early 1900s.

Figure 4.3 The Bowery neighborhood of New York City was considered a pri-mary location for tattooing in the late nineteenth century.

Milton Zeis (1901–1972) developed a business in tattooing, which included providing tattooing supplies and flash to tattoo artists. Zeis was well-known for his School of Tattooing (Figure 4.4), more specifically, his Tattoo Artist Course, which consisted of a series of lessons that was meant to prepare an individual for becoming a professional tattoo artist.

The course provided a “How To” guide to drawing, shading, using a tattoo machine, and setting up a shop according to health department regu-lations. Zeis also covered matching colors to cover birthmarks and scars, tattooing animals, and hypnotism and tattooing. In Lesson 7 of the Zeis course, a section on How to Make Black Tattoo Ink provides recipes for two black inks. The first used Chinese stick ink (“some call it India ink”) dis-solved in hot water, which was combined with a mixture of liquid cam-phor and “rectified spirits” (180 proof grain alcohol). The second called for lump camphor, rectified spirits, and black waterproof ink (n.p.). Zeis adds,

“The best blacks come from Germany which are Chin-Chin concentrated water proof black ink, or Pelican concentrated water proof black ink manu-factured by Wagner Gunther, Germany. A suitable black ink made in the United States is Schmincke Black Ink manufactured by the Grumbacker

Figure 4.4 Pamphlet for the Zeis School of Tattooing, c. 1953.

(sic.) Co., New York City” (n.p.). Additionally, a section on The Colors Used in the Tattoo Art provides a table (Table 4.1) of common colors and their chemical names (n.p.).

Zeis follows the list of chemicals with a section concerned with How to Mix Dry Tattoo Color. He recommends the addition of zinc oxide (white) to all colors in order to get a variety of shades and to facilitate the tattooing process. To the powders, the addition of an ethyl alcohol and mercury prep-aration (“Phe-mer-nite 1:1000”) is directed. Pure glycerin and lump cam-phor can be added to prevent drying and souring, respectively. In addition, Listerine can be added as a thinning agent. Zeis also published pamphlets to educate the tattoo community (Figure 4.5).

Table 4.1 Colors Used in Tattooing Reported by Zeis

Different Colors Chemical Names

Light and dark red Mercury sulfide

Light and dark green Chrome oxides

Light yellow Iron oxide

Deep yellow Cadmium sulfide

Light and dark brown and flesh Oxides of iron

Ivory black Carbon

Mineral black Oxide

White Zinc oxide

(a) (b)

Figure 4.5 Zeis Publications, c. 1940s–1950s.

Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins (1911–1973) was a tattoo artist in Hawaii who pioneered tattooing and focused on bringing large, Japanese-style tat-toos to the United States. He also worked to improve the art and method of tattooing by developing new techniques, tools, and tattoo inks. Don Ed Hardy describes a relationship between Sailor Jerry and Bob Palm, a tattoo-ist in California; “Palm had attended Columbia University and majored in chemistry under the G.I. Bill. His understanding of science fitted well with Jerry’s keen interest and lay research into the composition and compatibility of various pigments for use in tattooing” (Hardy, 2007, p. 14).

This reference is one indication that composing tattoo inks was a scien-tific endeavor for a tattoo artist. In his book, Hardy provides a series of letters exchanged between him and Sailor Jerry. In these letters, there are some nota-tions of Jerry’s experimentation with different pigments as well as indicanota-tions of the secrecy and competitive nature of their line of work. In a letter dated 1971, Jerry writes, “I was the first dirty bastard to start using purple, white, yellow and blue—now they are all trying to do it. Color is here to stay—good color that is!” (Hardy, 2007, p. 48; emphasis in original). Later in 1971 Jerry writes, “Phthalo green & white was my discovery…and now everybody uses it as standard procedure. I brought out purple, and so far, damn few have it, and that’s the way it should be. Anybody can get good color but damn few can get it in and that’s where we hold the edge and have to keep it” (Hardy, 2007, p. 66). Later, in his book Wear Your Dreams, Hardy comments that “Jerry was the only tattooer in the world with purple. It was a striking, true pur-ple, a majestic, royal color and Jerry used it like secret weapon” (Hardy, 2013, p. 83). Cohen remarks on how Sailor Jerry Collins introduced some new and stronger tattooing pigments, “One was a pigment used in the paint industry (which) produced an intense [color?] which did not deposit unevenly in the skin. It was composed of 87% azo pigment (yellow), 7% calcium resinate and 5% barium sulfate^*” (Cohen, 1994, p. 268). Jerry also remarks that he obtained a “really black” pigment by burning gum camphor and collecting the smoke on cheesecloth screens (Hardy, 2007, p. 88). Regarding his experimentation to develop better inks, “… none of these things should ever be tried out on anybody but yourself. I had a patch of violet on my leg that raised hell for 3 years … I got a sample of a hot booster with bright chroma that should beat anything we’ve hit yet. Will stick it in my leg and give you a report on the reaction … Damn these dark reds, they just die in the skin … it don’t have the chroma to stand against light, but I think I’ve got onto a good one” (Hardy, 2007, p. 94). He follows up “Red spot on my leg healing clean, no irritation, so if it stays in and holds its chroma I think it will be better than our present booster…” (Hardy, 2007, p. 95).

* This statement is not clear in the text and it is noted that the total does not equal 100%.

It is apparent that Sailor Jerry had an extensive understanding of

It is apparent that Sailor Jerry had an extensive understanding of