Does Tattoo Ink Cause Cancer?

 You may have seen these images floating around recently; you may even have heard the rumors. Tattoos cause cancer. Well, according to California everything causes cancer but is there any truth to it? Trigger warning : These pictures are a little scary. And as a disclaimer the “information” in the post on X is not verified and only found on this one post so take it with a grain of salt. A recent study showed that YES chemicals in tattoo ink can cause cancer, but it’s not that simple. Drinking water can cause drowning, but that doesn’t mean we stop drinking it. Back in the 90’s I remember a TV presenter getting a ridiculous amount of Londoners to agree to ban water because he called it Dihydrogen Monoxide and gave scary facts like “it is found in acid rain and cancer tumors”. 

Cancer is a huge buzzword. And the knee jerk reaction when we hear it means most people by my saying that yes ink can cause cancer are seriously debating if they should get tattooed again. That’s what I want to address. How safe is a tattoo? 

What is Tattoo Ink?

Contrary to what you may think there is no specific chemical formula for “tattoo ink”. Some companies use silicones, some alcohol, some use chemical pigments, some metal. In fact, cosmetic tattoo ink and what we call tattoo ink are two wholly different products. On top of his some old-school artists still hold by the tradition of India ink, Talens, and Pelikaan for their blacks. So how do you even know what your artist is putting in your tattoos? 

More popular companies like Intenze and Eternal offer a sterile chemical mix similar to what is used in industrial paints. The colors are bright, they look great in skin but at their most basic it is still paint. The chemical mix used to create these does often contain metals and other compounds which you would not want in your skin. UV ink for example glows because of phosphorescence - literally the prescience of phosphor which is highly carcinogenic. Yet people have been getting tattooed with it for 20 years. 

The simple reason why you’re not seeing masses of tattooed cancer patients is simply the amount of those chemicals in the ink and the amount that the body retains once the tattoo has healed. 

What Causes Cancer? 

On a very basic level cancer is caused when cells mutate. Cell life requires that our bodies are constantly renewing and replicating cells and sometimes this process goes wrong. Normally the body handles it and the compromised cell is swiftly destroyed, but not always. Any time you are disrupting the process there’s a risk for that anomaly, and adding chemicals into your body can increase the likelihood that the cell process will go wrong. It’s one of the reasons that we don’t tattoo moles. These are already anomalous skin cells and bothering them has a higher risk of creating cancer. 

The tattoo process destroys your skin cells and forces the body to make more over the tattoo ink to create the tattoo. So there is always a risk that that process can cause complications, but it’s generally an utterly minute chance. 

Concerns 

John Swierk Ph.D is one of the lead researchers on tattoo ink and according to most of his research it’s not the components in the ink but the size of the particles and the potential removal process that should concern you. A few years ago MOCRA changed tattoo ink in Europe. Many chemicals were banned because of the potential for them to cause cancer scares. This primarily applied to blues and greens (copper and manganese) as the pigment particles are small enough to pass into the lymph system (the body’s natural waste disposal). They would then become stuck in the lymph nodes and potentially show up as cloudy on an MRI, something that usually means a cancer diagnosis. See where we’re going? 

The size of the particle is what potentially makes it dangerous. Even though the particle isn’t itself causing cancer you’re still risking a biopsy of your lymph nodes and medical expenses to check out that cloudy scan. 

There are also AZO pigments and the concern with them also comes from how they are affected by laser during the removal process. While in their healed state the amount of chemicals isn’t enough to cause cancer the laser blast changes the chemical formula to activate the body’s removal process. Testing has shown that 83% of black tattoo ink when hit with a laser to break the particles down contains Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons - and these ARE carcinogenic. 

Larger tattoo particles cannot pass into the lymph system, cannot pass into cell membranes, and do not contain PAH amounts. In theory, your tattoo is harmless, unless you want it removed, depending on what colors and how big the particles are. 

What Does this Mean for Ink?

In theory, the US is moving towards similar standards to MOCRA in the EU. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There isn’t currently any regulation on what products can go into tattoo ink and the FDA is looking to change that. What it could mean is that the cost of ink goes up due to new regulation so your tattoo might be more expensive. It could also mean that ink becomes much safer as companies are forced to do their research. 

For you as the client make sure your artist is using good quality inks. If they’re not sure what is in their ink then thats a good sign they’ve never checked. Most ink companies will provide SDS sheets (an OSHA paper that shows what is in chemical products) on request and your artist really should know to some extent what is in their ink. 

The X post above, for example, notes lead and cinnabar. These aren’t usually used in quality inks but are often components in cheaper inks found on the internet or from brands made in Russia and China because they are cheap. Many ink brands these days are working towards eco friendly and carbon friendly sourcing which means ingredients like these are out. That isn’t to say they can’t be found in trace amounts. Even Many make-up products on the shelves test positive for lead in laboratories, it goes back to the sheer amount being so minuscule that it isn’t a concern. 

So before you either go running to remove your tattoo or cry off ever getting tattooed again, like many things it’s simply a question of knowing the risks first.