Tattoos have a long way from how they used to be. Before, there have been only a handful of colors that were available, predominantly black. Black tattoo ink is made from soot products and bone chars which are readily available. Nowadays, you get to see there are many types of ink available! But they have a catch to them that black and grey ink does not.
Do color tattoos take longer to heal? This is one of the questions that many people are worried about when they want to get a tattoo. They believe the color tattoos will be more harmful to their body and take longer than 4 weeks to heal. There might be some truth to it but there is more to it than meets the eye. If you are curious about color tattoos it is best to learn about them first and then make a decision on the colors you want on your tattoo!
Key Takeaways
- Color tattoos are unique in their healing because of the materials that make up the ink.
- Different colors will have a different healing process due to the materials that are made from and how much ink needs to be packed.’
- Color tattoo healing observation is much like any other tattoo healing process. It just needs a bit more time to heal due to the long tattooing process.
- The refining, material cost, and production process all make color tattoo ink more expensive than regular black tattoo ink.
Color Tattoos and Their Uniqueness in Healing
The main reason that color tattoos are unique in their healing is because of how much work has to be done so that the color can effectively set in the skin. The area of the skin where the colored ink is injected needs to be gone over almost twice more than a regular black and grey tattoo! This means that the skin on the colored tattoos will take longer to heal as it is more damaged. This is what makes color tattoos take longer to heal than darker monochrome ink like black and grey.
When compared to other color tattoos, black is the safest and quickest to set. They take less effort and work to set in the skin which is why they will heal faster than most other colors. Black tattoo ink is made from soot products that are made from carbon, which is relatively safe for the skin.
Tattoo Colors and Their Healing Process
Now that we know color tattoos take a bit longer to heal, let’s look at the types of color and the time it takes for them to heal. I’ll hold the baseline as black tattoo ink which takes the shortest time to heal and is the safest ink color when comparing the other types of tattoo ink color. Black tattoos will take somewhere around 3 to 6 weeks to completely heal the top layer of the skin so that will be our baseline healing period.
Red tattoo ink
Red color tattoos are by far the most toxic for the body and take a bit longer to heal than other inks! This is because they are made from cadmium and iron oxide along with naphthol-AS pigment (organic red ink). These are known to cause adverse effects on the skin such as skin irritation, allergies, and prolonged redness of the skin. All of these can hinder the healing phase of the tattoo making it so that it needs more time to heal, taking up to 1 or 2 weeks extra to heal the top layer of the skin completely!
Yellow and orange tattoo ink
Yellow and orange tattoo ink is also cadmium-based, primarily made from a substance known as cadmium seleno-sulfate and disazodiarylide. These are less irritating than what is in red ink but they still cause prolonged itching even after the tattoo is done. These ink colors take time to heal but a little less than red ink, so about a week more than the baseline.
Blue, green, and purple tattoo ink
Green tattoo ink is made from cobalt and chromium oxides, blue is made from cobalt aluminum oxide and purple tattoo ink is made from cobalt manganese. All these ingredients (and other added ingredients) are relatively less toxic on the skin than red, orange, and yellow. These cause less allergic reaction and irritation and take just as long as black tattoo ink so you will be relatively safe from these inks. At most, it will take an extra few days for these types of ink to heal completely.
White tattoo ink
White tattoo ink is made from zinc or titanium oxides which makes it have a thicker consistency than other colors. This consistency means that tattoo artists have a harder time packing the ink in the skin, causing the skin to be worked on longer than other colors! This is what makes the healing time for white tattoos very similar to that of red tattoo ink, which could be an additional week or two to completely heal.
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Healing Observation of Color Tattoos: What to Expect
After seeing the different colors and how they heal when compared to black ink, it’s time to move towards what you can expect when seeing color tattoos heal. You will notice more or less the same healing during each healing phase so let’s see what they will look like.
Initial stage: 1 to 7 days
During this time, your tattoo is an open wound so you will need to be constantly washing it with antibacterial soap.
When you do this, you will notice that your skin is coming off with the colored ink. Don’t be worried about this as it will be normal.
Itching and peeling stage: 7 to 15 days
This is around the time that your new tattoo will start to itch like crazy! You will start to notice more itching around the edges of the tattoo where it will also be red. You will also notice that your tattoo might be darker than during the first week.
It might look cloudy or blurry but again it’s all part of the healing process. Your tattoo will also scab at this point and make your tattoo even less noticeable than before!
Shiny stage: 15 to 20 days
After the scabs fall off, you will notice a waxy and shiny layer of the skin. This is the new skin that was formed underneath the scabbing. It will appear shiny and new, making your colored tattoo look even brighter than before.
Final stage: 21 days and onwards
During the final stages of the healing process, your new tattoo will start to look more or less how you intended it to be.
The itching and peeling of the skin will stop, and the shiny layer will return to normal. Your color tattoos might take anywhere from 21 days to 42 days depending on what color was used and placement.
Therefore, make sure to take care of your new tattoo and follow the tattoo aftercare methods given by your tattoo artists as closely as possible!
Cost of Color Tattoo Ink
As unsurprising as it may sound, color tattoo ink would cost more than black tattoo ink! This is because the pigments that make up the colored ink have to go through a more rigorous production process than black ink. Think of it like this, colored tattoo inks are already more troublesome for the body. That is why the process to make the color acceptable in the body will need extra care in the production.
As well as the production care, there are also the raw materials needed to produce the pigments necessary for the ink. The metals that are mentioned above are in no way cheap and take a lot of money to produce and refine to get the exact pigmentation you need. They have a lot of impurities in them as raw material so they need to be carefully extracted to get the pigments necessary for the tattoo ink.
FAQs
Which is the most toxic tattoo ink?
Red is considered to be the most harmful ink because of the material needed to make it and the adverse effects it can cause.
Are vegan tattoo inks good?
Vegan tattoo inks are good and they are very similar to regular tattoo ink. They are made from plant-based products and are said to be less irritating to the skin.
What is black ink made of?
Black ink is made of iron oxide and soot products. It is even made from blue and green pigments which is why very old tattoos turn blue or green over decades!
Final Thoughts
Overall, color tattoos will take a bit longer than the usual black or grey tattoo ink but it is not by a great margin. At most, it will take an extra week or two for the skin to heal. The materials needed to make the ink are irritating to the body. They also require more time to be worked on to pack enough ink so that the tattoo looks how you want it to be looking like. As a result, the skin requires more time than usual to heal. Some colored inks don’t take too much time as they are very similar to black ink. But the cost of color tattoo inks is determined by the prices of raw materials, refining, and the production process.
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