Would it be possible to get a tattoo under your fingernail? Ok lets say you get your fingernail removed and then let you finger heal enough to where you could get a tattoo on it where the finger nail would grow over. Now would the ink spread all over our would it hold its design.
I don’t think there would really be any way to gaurentee how well the image would be preserved under there. Plus, do you know how much that would hurt 
I know that you would have to have novocain but I was wondering really if the image would stay or would it smear?
My guess is smear just going by the way trapped dirt and other marks appear under the nail. Of course i don’t have any actual facts to back this up…but i am almost sure the image would not be perfect.
But a tattoo is under the skin, not like dirt or blood under your nail. It might keep your nail from growing back somehow, I dunno.
I don’t think we’ll ever really know until someone volunteers.
Another vote for smear. I think it would smear as the nail moves foward. Even though a tattoo is under the skin, they can still smear or even rub off. I have a friend who has a tattoo on her foot that she has to have redone every 3 or 4 years because all the color disappears and the outline fades quite a bit. As a slight hijack, I have two tattoos on my back, do you think taking a hot shower with the water pounding on my back every day would have any effect on them. I’m not to worried at the moment, as one is really crappy and the other was splotchy ever since I got it (what causes that, could it be from the scab coming off to early), but I do plan to have the splotchy one redone next summer and don’t want to ruin it.
Oh sweet jesus, just reading the op made my right thumb hurt again. I sliced most of the nail and the nailbed, along with part of the pad, off with a meat slicer in the deli where I used to work, and it was the most excruciating month of healing I have ever endured. I couldn’t put any pressure on my thumb even after the nail (against the doctor’s prediction) finally grew back, for months and months. Sweet jesus that would hurt so much that it wouldn’t MATTER whether it smeared or not.
::shudder::
I once lost a fingernail. I slammed my finger in a door, and it started bleeding fairly badly underneath the nail. I was pretty young, so I don’t remember exactly how things progressed, but a few weeks later the nail got loose and then just fell off. No pain at all (except for the original trauma). Being able to touch the flesh that is normally covered by my nail was pretty weird, but not painful at all.
Now, I’d imagine that getting it tattooed would hurt, but I can’t think of any reason that it would smear (not that I really know anything about tattoos).
Well, you could go this route.
Doing some quick searches I am not finding anything on this, and if it were readily feasible I am sure somebody has done it (it can’t hurt any worse than bifurcating your tongue).
I’ll ask my wife about it when I see her this evening (she was once the author/maintainer of the rec.arts.bodyart faq) and see if she’s heard of anybody doing it.
My sense of it is that it wouldn’t take well. It wouldn’t be very clear when seen through the nail (kind of like looking through a murky window), and it would be constantly exposed to sunlight which is very bad for your ink. I don’t think it would so much smear (though the healing would be interesting; I don’t know enough about how nails regrow; when I’ve lost them there seems to be a combination of skin thickening and new nail from the nailbed), but you’d quickly just have a blob anyway.
But that is just my guess.
Here is what bad coding prevented me from saying:
Why on earth would you want to do that? If you really want a design on your nails, just paint it on. (And I’ve got tattoos.)
No, you can’t just lift up the fingernail, tattoo the skin and put the nail back. It doesn’t work that way.
Why do you think that people are tortured by having things done to their fingernails? Geez, talk about a dumb idea!
Though I’ve no intention to take issue with this, my brain gnome, you know–the one responsible for inane thoughts, woke up a bit upon reading this.
I don’t have any ink however, I am very well aware that sun exposure is a no-no. Additionally, I’m not experienced in the particular tract of physiology that deals with nails, hair, keratin, and all that other jazz. But in the same breath, I can’t every remember getting a sun burn under my fingernails (and I have had my, ahem, fair share of sunburns). Perhaps the nail would actually be a safeguard against exposure?
Of course, that’s totally irrelevant if the tat looks blurred and/or grows out with the nail, which would be my expectation.
Oh, there’s no such thing as an idea so dumb that people wouldn’t do it. Cosmetic eye implants, anybody? I bet even now somebody’s in deep negotiations with their tattoo artist over this one.
About 25 or 26 years ago, while in art school, I slipped while pushing an inky pen nib into its holder. The point of the nib slipped under a fingernail (ouch) and deposited some black india ink there.
Still there today, looking just as it did, or maybe ever so slightly lighter. It was only a mark that looked like a smudge anyway, but neither its shape or size has changed at all.
Just thought that I’d share the fact that I now have a toenail that is hanging on by a little teeny thread, ready to fall off (second-biggest toe). I can flip it comletely over, but I dasn’t yank it out yet since the little thread is quite tender.
It seems to happen a lot with runners (and that is what caused mine). I suppose that this is the optimal time to start scouting out quality tattoo artists for the experiment.
How about having a laser artist drill micro holes in the nail and just into the nail bed in the desired pattern on a spaced dimension.
A couple of weeks later drill new micro hole between the previouse ones.
Seal the holes with nail polish or other sealer each time.
Better yet forget the whole thing unless you enjoy pain and undesireable infections!
How about getting the whites of your eyes tattooed? can that be done? Its the only thing I can think of more masochistic and freaky :eek:
You can have them stick a thing in there. This link has a news article but no picture - I’ve seen a picture of it but can’t find it offhand, and the picture link in the article dosen’t work.
Found a picture: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4685961/
So now do you doubt me that somebody would get their nail bed tattooed?