Tattooing is not without its risks. If it is done in sanitary conditions by an experienced tattoo artist, it usually will not result in any lasting health problems. But tattoo safety relies on the person injecting a foreign substance permanently into one’s skin. And it’s only natural that some people who get tattoos will experience adverse reactions, ranging from skin irritation to allergies to infection, even when the parlors they use practice the highest standards of tattoo safety.

Even the FDA, as the watchdog of the cosmetics industry, has weighed in on the dyes used in tattooing ink. It has given them the all clear for use in lipsticks, but has remained silent as to their suitability for permanent skin injections. On the other hand, it has not yet tried to regulate their use.

You should know, however, that some red tattoo inks contain mercuric sulfide and ferric hydrate, and mercuric sulfide, present in cinnabar and vermilion inks, is associated with increased allergic reactions sometimes to the forming of granular lesions. These lesions are little nodules which appear because the body’s immune system sees the tattoo dyes as a foreign substance. The nodules reaction can occur with any colored tattoo inks. Dubbed the “red reaction”, the sensitivity to red tattoo inks may lead to swelling, itching, and inflammation around the tattoo. But the reaction may also lie dormant for many years.

You don’t have to have a medical degree to know that, when you allow yourself to be tattooed, you are allowing thousands of miniscule openings to be made in your skin. And you know that with every breach of your skin there is a chance that bacteria will find their way in.