[ID: A complex infographic titled, “Tattoo”. The caption below the title reads: “With analysts questioning whether the popularity of tattoos has reached its peak, the National Post takes a look at the current state of the tattoo industry, who gets them, how they’re applied and what to do when you want to get rid of them.”
Section 1: How Much Will It Hurt?
Caption: Veteran tattooist Matthew Ellis used to tell his clients that the procedure would feel like “a cat’s scratch or a dull knife running along your skin.” But after more than 15 years in the business, Mr. Ellis has seen the pain vary so drastically between customers that he now prefers to say “a tattoo feels like a tattoo.”
“There’s nothing else like it,” said the artist, who co-owns Seven Crowns Tattoo in Toronto. “It’s not that bad. The popularity of tattoos can attest to that.” (End caption.)
Beside the caption is a graphic showing which parts of the body a tattoo is most and least painful.
The base of the neck, where it meets the shoulderblades.
A thin line across the collarbones.
Section 2: Where Are People Getting Tattooed?
(Transcriber’s note: This part is difficult to interpret. For this transcription I assume that the following statistics are percentages out of “females” and “males” who have tattoos, rather than percentages of the general population.)
4% of females and 0% of males with tattoos have face tattoos.
4% of females and 8% males with tattoos have neck tattoos.
20% females and 17% males with tattoos have chest tattoos.
25% females and 34% males with tattoos have upper back or shoulder tattoos.
7% of females and 75% of males with tattoos have arm tattoos.
18% of females and 5% of males with tattoos have back tattoos.
13% of females and 5% of males with tattoos have abdomen tattoos.
5% of females and 3% of males with tattoos have buttock tattoos.
9% of females and 2% of males with tattoos have hip tattoos.
14% of females and 20% of males with tattoos have leg tattoos.
1% of females and 14% of males with tattoos have hand or finger tattoos.
27% of females and 2% of males with tattoos have ankle tattoos.
4% of females and 2% of males with tattoos have foot or toe tattoos.
Section 3: Who’s Getting Inked?
(People who have tattoo(s), by category)
(Sourced from the Journal of American Dermatology, 2006 data)
Gender: 22% of women and 26% of men have tattoos.
Marital status: 20% of married/engaged people, 41% of people living with a partner, 27% of divorced/separated people, 50% of widowed people, and 25% of people who have never married have tattoos.
Age: 15% of people 43 to 53 years old have tattoos. 24% of people 32 to 42 years old have tattoos. 36% of people 20 to 32 years old have tattoos.
Military: 37% of people with military experience have tattoos, and 23% of people without military experience have tattoos.
Jail time: 58% of people who have spent 3 days or more in jail have tattoos, while 20% of people who have spent less than 3 days in jail have tattoos.
Alcohol: 14% of people who have never drank, 26% of people who currently drink, and 37% of people who used to drink have tattoos.
Religion: 19% of religious people and 33% of non-religious people have tattoos.
Income (in U.S. dollars): 32% of people who make less than 40k, 24% of people who make 40 to 75k, and 19% of people who make more than 75k have tattoos.
Drug use: 38% of people who have used drugs have tattoos. 18% of people who have never used drugs have tattoos.
Education: 40% of high school drop-outs have tattoos. 29% of high school graduates have tattoos. 25% of people with some college education have tattoos. 14% of people with a bachelor’s degree have tattoos. 14% of people who attended graduate school have tattoos.
Section 4: The Tattoo Machine
Believed to be first patented more than 100 years ago, the modern tattoo machine operates using the same basic principles as its century-old predecessor. By closing and opening an electric circuit, the machine moves an ink-tipped needle up and down, piercing the skin as fast as 3,000 times a minute.
Subtitle: How the Needle Goes Up and Down
1. An electric current runs through copper coils, turning the two coils into an electromagnet.
2. The armature bar, above the coils, is connected to the needle. When the coils are magnetized, they attract the bar downward, pushing the needle into the skin.
3. The metal strip and the contact screw control the current. When the two are touching each other, the electric current is able to flow into the coils. But when the magnetized coils pull the armature bar down, the metal strip is no longer touching the screw, breaking the current and causing the coils to demagnetize and pull the needle out of the skin.
There is a prominent graphic of a gloved hand holding a labelled tattoo machine. There is a contact screw at the top, which pushes down a metal strip to touch an armature bar, which is attached to two coils and a needle which reaches through a long pole which the hand holds like a pencil. The needle emerges at the tip, which is captioned: The needle delivers the ink to the skin. Small groupings of needles (often three, but sometimes just one) are used to draw sharp outlines. Larger groups of up to 32 needles are arranged in rows like the bristles of a paintbrush. These are used for shading and coloring.
Section 5: How Does the Ink Get There?
This part has a cross section of skin, showing a needle putting ink into the skin, beneath the epidermis. The following are labels on the graphic and their corresponding captions:
Epidermis, the skin’s outer layer, acts like a tinted window over the tattoo. (The epidermis is the outermost layer of the skin.)
Dermis is the target area. Here antibodies surround the ink and trap it in place. (The dermis is two layers below the epidermis, contains hair follicles and blood vessels, and is much, much thicker than the epidermis.)
The needle injects ink, one drop at a time, 1 to 2 millimeters below the skin’s surface. Pigment particles from the ink become trapped in fibroblast cells, which are connective tissue found in the dermis. While the body does identify pigment particles as foreign, they are too large for white blood cells to move and/or destroy.
Subcutaneous fat - If the needle reaches this layer, the ink will immediately spread and blur. (The subcutaneous fat is below the dermis.)
Section 6: What is Tattoo Ink?
Tattoo ink is made up of small pigment particles suspended in disinfecting carrier solution - common ethyl alcohol or purified water. Traditionally, metal salts, lead, cobalt and carbon are used as pigments to give the ink its color, but the American Academy of Dermatology has reported a shift to organic dyes with plastic-based pigments used in printing inks and car paint. This spring, dermatologist Michi Shinohara warned there were “many unknowns about how these [new] inks interact with the skin…and if they are responsible for an increasing number of complications.” Lack of regulation in tattoo ink manufacturing is also a concern, says the Canadian Dermatology Association.
Section 7: What If I Want It Removed?
The common misconception is that tattoos are just as easy to remove as they are to apply, says Dr. Harvey Lui, a dermatology professor at the University of British Columbia and the head of dermatology at Vancouver General Hospital. “They’re in for a rude awakening,” says Dr. Lui, who has more than 20 years experience in laser tattoo removal.
While laser treatment is recommended over alternatives - which include burning or surgically removing the affected skin - it’s far from a perfected technique, says Dr. Lui. And removing a tattoo is often more painful than getting one. “It’s kind of like when you’re frying bacon and you get a little zap on your skin,” he said. “Except it’s dozens or hundreds of little zaps sustained over a period of time.”
After one laser treatment session, the bruised and blistered skin takes between one and two weeks to heal before anothet treatment can be administered. Large, professional tattoos can take up to 15 treatments - and still, the skin will often look like off-white paint on a white wall, Dr. Lui said.
The final section has no title, and contains six statistics:
23% of Americans have at least one tattoo.
21% of Canadians have at least one tattoo.
$1.65 Billion is the annual amount of U.S. spending on tattoos.
$45 is the average cost of a small tattoo in U.S. dollars.
$150 per hour is the average cost of a large tattoo in U.S. dollars.
The percentage of people who regret their tattoo is 17%.
Sources are cited at the bottom of the page:
Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
Canadian Dermatology Association
Basic Fundamentals of Modern Tattoo (by C. R. Jordan)
Infographic made by Mike Faille, Jake Edmiston, and Alex Jivov at the National Post.
