Skin Color and Ink Color

There are a wealth of posts out there that deal with the problems of tattooing on dark skin. I have personally seen many tattoos which are all but invisible once healed due to the darkness of the customer's skin.

Something I have wondered about though is the opposite. Pale skin obviously shows up most colors pretty easily. Even so, the most common single color for a tattoo is black -- would browns or sepia tones work better with light skin? Restating for clarification: I am talking about a single-color tattoo (which would normally be done in black) done with brown, gray, or some other soft color instead. I havent seen this done personally (though I am sure it has been done) and I am curious about how it works out in practice. It seems like this would only work for someone with fair skin, but I would guess that the fading of color might look more "natural" than the greenish tones resulting from black ink.

The composition and viscosity of colour and black pigments is different, both in application and longevity. Colour pigments tend to fade more quickly and disperse more visibly in the skin. This is why you see very old tattoos and only the black is still visible.

This is one of the big questions relating to colour realism work, how will it stand the test of time over 20-30 years (some evidence available but mot much), compared to Black and grey realism? The latter uses black ink from pure to various dilution strengths (its still black ink/pigment).

I’ve heard (several times) people talking about the black linework containing the colour ink so that it can’t disperse past that point. I’m not sure if this is the case (??). The dispersal I mentioned above is more the fading out of the coloured pigment over time, which can look a bit patchy.

Final thought, it’s harder to line with coloured pigment too, and even if it goes in, it’s likely to degrade much faster than black ink. So…all these lovely red-lined tigers you see on instagram, might not look so great in a few short years (me thinks).

I have heard the "containment" theory as well, and can't imagine how exactly one could prove that -- it is equally possible that a black ring around a color produces an optical illusion of greater color depth, and that this has nothing to do with ink dispersal at all.

The problem inherent to most ink discussion is that while general statements are easy to make (black tattoo ink seems to be more lightfast than other colors) the truth is that the composition of inks varies and often is unknown (not sure what the laws mandate in terms of disclosure of tattoo ink pigmentation -- even then, this would only cover "real" tattoo ink, not improvised inks).

Is it unreasonable to expect to need a touch up on a color tattoo? For example, if I get one of these hip red tigers perhaps I should expect it to need some work in ten years time