The deal with white ink.

One common question that I get asked at my job is if we do white ink tattoos. This answer varies depending on a bunch of factors. Over the years, white ink tattoos have become very popular on social media sites such as Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram. Once healed, they tend to look like a faint scar, depending on your skin tone. So how come they aren't as common as other colors, like black?

Honestly, white ink doesn't hold up very well. The pictures of these tattoos on social media sites are generally only a few months old at most. Therefore, at the time of the picture they are in their "prime", so to speak, as far as how they look physically (all tattoos age, no matter how well they were done). The fact of the matter is that any artist who has been tattooing for awhile has seen clients that come back with white ink they have used in their tattoos, only to find that the white has sort of turned brown-ish. This is the main reason I give people when asked this question. After all, who wants a brown-ish tattoo if your intention was for it to be white?

 It's also pretty difficult to get white ink packed in solid-i.e., it doesn't "fill in" very well. There will almost always be patches in the work if it is a large area of white that needs filling in. Of course, this isn't a problem if the client is just looking to get line work done, but it's still a factor to consider if the piece is larger.

In general, my shop personally only uses white ink for mixing custom colors (to get a lighter blue, a creamier pink, etc.) and for accents, such as eyes in animals. We don't really use it as a main color anywhere. We tend to shy away from white ink tattoos, and we will try to recommend that the client gets the tattoo in black (or even another color) instead. Of course, if someone REALLY can't imagine it being any other color, we'll do it, but we do warn clients of all the risks involved.

The good news: if you decide you really want a white ink tattoo, then get it. You can always go back later and get the design redone (or even covered up with a completely different design) in a darker color, and no one will ever know.