I have Googled around to find the same crude explanation why a tattoo does not fade. They all claim the needles push ink deep into the dermis layer of skin which does not flake off. I follow that, but other cells die off and get replaced. I’ve heard it said the body fully replentishes itself every seven years. So, if this is true, not to mention the fact that the body should reject the ink as foreign matter, why then doesn’t a tattoo fade or disappear?
They do fade. Even if cared for properly, they need to be touched up periodically.
I have seen other examples where tattoos do fade with time but the question remains–why wouldn’t all tattoos fade completely away after a few years if the body is constantly replacing cells? Skin cells are particularly replaceable; the top layer of the epidermis is dead cells just waiting to slough off. (I don’t know at which layer tattoo ink is deposited; maybe those aren’t replaced as readily.)
The body doesn’t completely replace itself every seven years. That’s another fake fact floating around the internet. Parts of your body are replaced at different rates. Skin is replaced fairly quickly. Your stomach lining is replaced quickly. Most of your brain cells aren’t replaced, and the cells in your pancreas that regulate blood sugar aren’t replaced (which means if you are diabetic like me you’re screwed since those cells won’t ever heal or regenerate). Bones probably take closer to 10 years to replace. In your eye, cells in your cornea are replaced, but cells in your lens aren’t.
You’ve got part of it. The cells in your dermis don’t flake off. When they die they get re-absorbed into your body. Another part of it is that the body does reject the ink. The body’s immune system surrounds and captures the ink, preventing it from doing more damage to your body’s systems, not that the ink would do any damage but that’s how your immune system works. Surround it, break it down, and expel it. In this case the ink particles are too big to break down, so the ink can’t be expelled. The ink ends up surrounded and trapped in your skin, so it’s actually your body’s immune system that makes the tattoo permanent.
Over time, some of the ink does break down and does get carried away by your immune system, so tattoos do fade over time. Lasers can also be used to break down the ink into small pieces that will then be carried way by your immune system, which is how they can remove tattoos these days.
Thank you.
There’s other issues that may cause it to fade as well. If it wasn’t done well, it’ll fade faster, or in another case, if it’s done well it won’t appear to fade as fast. Tattoos exposed to the sun will fade faster. Tattoos that get a lot of [physical] abuse will fade really fast. I have friends that have tattoos on the top of their feet and after a few years you wouldn’t even know it was there. Their shoes rub them right off.
To a certain extent, I’m sure all of this and more varies from person to person as well.
But in the end, they don’t fade in a matter of days for the reasons mentioned above, but they certainly do fade over the years. If you want to keep tattoos looking perfect, you’d probably have to get them redone every 10 years or so.
Besides fading, I think the ink “spreads” - I mean, my Dad had tattoos that might have looked nice and crisp when they were first done when he was young, but that basically looked like unrecognizable blobs when he was older.
I have tattoos ranging from 2 to 35 years old. Depending on style (fine line vs traditional, color vs black vs black and grey), location on my body, and artist, it can be nearly impossible to determine their age. When people try to age my art, my oldest piece is usually picked as my most recent.
The only part of my 43 year old tattoo that has faded is the colored part, the black is still a deep black. But it has spread out some though. The USN part is totally unreadable now and a couple other places that has fine lines are just black blobs now.
Also, some tattoos are meant to fade. A friend has a long, thin, crescent on her arm. It was done using only white ink, and was repeated three times. She intentionally allowed the area to tan/burn. Now, 15 years later, it looks like a vague scar, which is what she was aiming for. It is really beautiful.
Huh. Thank you, learned a new thing today. I’d always assumed the laser burned off the ink and/or the skin layers above the ink (scarring them and thickening them so the ink can’t be seen any more).
Ignorance skewered.
But is that from the ink spreading, or from your father’s skin sagging/expanding due to changes in the amount of muscle/fat under it ?
One follow-up question to this: Why doesn’t a tattoo smear, especially as the ink is being injected? It amazes me such intricate designs can be created without smearing.
Color inks are more colorfast now (more UV resistant) than they were 43 years ago (1974).
when the ink is applied, the part that is permanent is injected underneath the top few layers of skin with a rapidly oscillating needle, smearing would be painful and bloody. Also, watching as my tats were inked, there is a LOT of ink that goes onto the top of the skin that the artist has to wipe away regularly to see what they are doing.
One way to think of a tattoo is as a scar from a very mild abrasion that happens to have a particular set of pigments underneath the dermis that outline the shape of that scar.