White Ink Tattoos: Pros and Cons

Desktop Hippie

The title pretty much says it all. I have a tattoo in black ink on my lower back (where I think every tattooed female gets one) and would like a second one. The thing is it's going to be in a place more visible than my lower back (my wrist), and since it's not so much for showing off as it is for me, I've thought about getting it done in white ink.

The design is very simple. A word (in Irish) written in an old system of writing called ogham (basically a vertical line with different horizontal lines representing each letter.)

So - aside from the pros and cons of tattoos in general - what are the issues with white ink tattoos? Anyone here have one done?

Reverend_Chaos

Aside from being hard to see, there would be no reason not to do it in white ink.

Another option that you might consider is black light ink. A few of the colors are visible but very faint except when under a black light, like pink. The yellow is very bright under the black lights but invisible otherwise. Just an idea. My buddy actually has a large four leaf clover on the left side of his face.

Kakodaimonos

White ink tattoos do take more passes to get the full color down, so they will be more unpleasant than getting a regular tattoo. The white ink also fades a lot quicker than the traditional inks. I'd suggest you find an artist who has done white ink tattoos before, because they are a lot harder to lay down than standard tattoos.

DekuStick

I recommend sticking to the white ink and not going with UV ink like suggest up there. You can read the Wiki if you'd like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_tattoo. After that I echo everything Kako said.

NateVader

A friend of mine always wanted to get a white ink tattoo and the same response she gets from every tattoo shop has been "what's the point? it'll fade away really fast unless you get it redone regularly for the rest of your life"

LondonBridge

Nails are made from skin so tattoos near your feet or hands will fade faster. I don't recommend the tat on the wrist.

Dark Moon

LondonBridge wrote: »

Nails are made from skin so tattoos near your feet or hands will fade faster. I don't recommend the tat on the wrist.

No, nails are made in a bed of cells called the germinal matrix that lay a few mm deep in the finger. When they grow your nails don't consume the skin from your arm. The reason why hands and feet will fade faster is because you slough off piles of skin from areas constantly touching things. I don't imagine this would be as big a problem with your wrist.

One thing I'd consider is the pain involved in getting tattoo on your wrist. The less fat/muscle tissue in an area, the more painful it will be to tattoo. Seeing as the wrist has essentially neither of these, it will be a rather unpleasant experience.