How will your tattoo look like after 20 years?

Image:© Olga Ekaterincheva / Fotolia

Many of the fans of tattoos are not considering what will happen to them in the age-related changes that occur on the body with age.

The process depends on the quality of their skin, on the size of the painting and its exposure to the sun. On this occasion, a British scientist has created a formula that spells the destiny of tattoos.

The formula makes it possible to predict how the tattoo will look like 20 years after placing it.

Such predictions are important for the health of people who get tattoos because the used inks are largely based on heavy metals – mercury, lead, nickel and zinc.

Such predictions are important and from the aesthetic point of view. The creator of the formula is Ian Ames from the London University College. He has studied the diffusion of ink into the layers of the skin in order to create a formula and then applied it on some tattoos to predict their future shape.

The insertion of the ink for tattooing first generates an immune reaction. The white blood cells are trying to dispose of the pollutants (the ink). This way, part of it is eliminated through the lymphatic system, while the rest ends up trapped in the cells under the skin (the fibroblasts).

As we get older the particles of the ink are distracted beneath the skin until the cells separate or die.

“The type of the skin, the age, the size of the tattoo, its exposure to the sun, the type of the ink used – all these factors influence how the tattoo will look like after a while,” says the creator of the formula.

He notes that the finer details of the tattoo will be lost first, while the thicker lines will remain the most intact. The finely painted tattoos can look very good at the time of their making, but after 15 years can eventually lose their fine character adds the British specialist.