tatto ink

I have been a tattoo artist for 8 yaers now and have used some pretty good tattoo inks. I came across starbright tatoo ink and was pleased until I had three different people come back in will allergic reactions to the red starbright tattoo ink has anyone else had this problem? e-mail me at [email removed]

After 8 years, you recently came across Starbrite?

ive had no problems with starbrite colors. I have used the red many times without any allergic reactions.

I hear more peop-le having trouble with the Intenze reds but I haven't had problems as of yet however I also use Fantasia and Millenium and plan of getting Eternal Inks to give them a try. Red is the most common color for reaction

I have seen the scarlet red react pretty odd before.Which red was it?

i used to use starbrite and never had a problem with the scarlet, crimson, or light red. the deep maroon sucked ass!!! ive been using waverly powder reds and having good results. also the dermaglo red from eikon works well.

Why don't you guys shut your fuckin' mouths about the names of suppliers? Anyone can come read this forum, absolutely anyone... don't you care about that?

not to start shit frank but anyone can open a magazine and see an ad for starbright. not to name anyone but theres also quite a few talented artists on this site that have open forums where they discuss tattooing more in depth then its really ever discused here. as im sure you know eikon and waverly are a little harder to contact then suppliers carrying starbrite. sorry to let the cat out of the bag there frank. just wanted to let a brother know my thoughts on a color not the complete science of tattooing. so much for my thinking of contacting you about one of those $100 machines.

you guys need to grow up a bit and start answering questions instead of having a go at eachother. we're all supposed to be in the same profession? the time of suppliers lists changing hands for hundreds of £'s / $'s has long since gone, thank god. inks are a personal preference but i have also tried starbrite and had problems with a few bad reactions, now i use danny's inks and found them to be excellent, thats not an advertizment its an endorsment. good luck. you'll need it with guys with that sort of attitude.

Why don't you guys shut your fuckin' mouths about the names of suppliers? Anyone can come read this forum, absolutely anyone... don't you care about that? Frank, Why dont you go to readstreet and stick your ass up in the air with the rest of those air heads. We prefer to help and teach. the right way.

Why don't you guys shut your fuckin' mouths about the names of suppliers? Anyone can come read this forum, absolutely anyone... don't you care about that? Frank, Why dont you go to readstreet and stick your ass up in the air with the rest of those air heads. We prefer to help and teach. the right way.

i recently got my 8th (but only 2nd) color tattoo. the red area peeled, blistered, and literally chunks of skin (along with the ink) came out. the rest of that tattoo looks fine. i was told that it was probably due to the fact that i'm allergic to penicillin. if it is such a common reaction, why dont they ask it as a screening tool when you're getting a tattoo?? just wondering if this could have been avoided if my artist has asked, (or if i had known it was even a possibility). i have another tattoo with red that is fine, so i'm assuming it was just a different brand of ink, but am now scared to get this new one touched up when healed, for fear that it will happen again.

Was just wondering if any of you guys has had a problem with white ink. I recently had a drama with the white in my new tattoo, the skin seems to reject the white my artist used to cut down turquise. The areas where he used the ink with the white scabed up heeps worse. He used a coupple of diffrent blends and the areas with more white appear to be the worst. Can any one offer me any advice or oppionions. thanx guys. joker

Don't mention the names of pigment suppliers? Well thats the silliest thing I have heard on this forum...Come on...thats just goin too far...all anyone has to do is google "tattoo ink" and there most of them are!....Chill muddafuks!!,,,TAz

I recently had my 5th tattoo done all in red. Starbright was the ink used. I have had 2 other tattoos with reds all in Eternal... I have had a horrific reaction to the Starbright ink! My foot was swollen, I had hives, my toung and throat were swollen and now my body is rejecting the tattoo. I was told that I would be able to tattoo over the scar when it is done with the rejection process... Does anyone know about this type of thing? I dont know anything about tattooing over scars or alergic reaction sites? Thanks

Without seeing a pic of the tattoo its impossible to tell for sure but sounds like red syndrome...check with a dodtor FIRST to make sure its not an infection...if doc says no infection and since its fresh You can have your artist go over the area with distilled and sterilized water instead of ink , this can help your body reject a lot of that red which its doing anyway, If you have a bad case of red syndrome it can literally be months or a year or more until your body rejects all the red if it ever realy does get rid of all of it. Corticosteroids can help...talk to your dermatologiost!!

My mom is a nurse and says she hates it when people tell her whats wrong and never tell her the outcome so I thought Id share MY outcome... This was an alergy to the ink, my tattoo turned into a colored, slightly raised scar. Vitamin E oil was recomended to me for the scarring... this seems to be working magic on my tattoo. It is now healing! It has lost ink and will never look as beautiful as the day I got it, However I will now be able to tattoo over it, and at least walk around for a while without my foot looking disgusting. This process I am sure will take some time, but I am so happy that it is looking even the slightest bit better and thought artists out there would be interested to know that Vitamin E (wich is natural and not harmful) can really help in situations such as this. It is messy and has requires a very loose ace bandage, but man has it been worth it!

Starbright inks are awesome, but contain latex. If a person is allergic to latex you will have some bad reactions

Mama, if latex is a problem, how about most ink pigments containing metal salts!!!! This post outlines the composition of most pigments: http://www.tattooconnect.com/forum/showthread.php?t=333

Does anyone know anything about Vivid Inks? I have a 2 day old Tattoo to and I have sevral others . But this tattoo Blistered the first day and Its the whole tattoo not just red or green its every color . NOW the only thing I did diffrent this time was I used triple antibiotic not A/D also Dial Not my normal soft soap but its antibacterial still ..Can anyone Help maybe narrow this down ? I would realy appreciate it .

Does anyone know anything about Vivid Inks? I have a 2 day old Tattoo to and I have sevral others . But this tattoo Blistered the first day and Its the whole tattoo not just red or green its every color . NOW the only thing I did diffrent this time was I used triple antibiotic not A/D also Dial Not my normal soft soap but its antibacterial still ..Can anyone Help maybe narrow this down ? I would realy appreciate it .

Don't use Dial soap on a fresh tattoo. Use only pure soaps such as Ivory or Neutragena.

I too have recently had a few customers reacting badly to scarlet red.....Every other color has taken beautifuly. I contacted papillion to see if anyone else was having this problem.

i have been getting tattooed regularly for 4 years now.. my reactions lately have matched an earlier posting about itchy hands, feet, red faced, hives, and swollen throat.. anyone know anything more about this??? i went to an allergist and he didn't know what to do either.

I try not to be overtly rude on this forum, but I must say I'm shocked that you've been in the industry for 8 years and you don't know how to spell tattoo.

i like you, mary.

some people have reaction to alot of the pigments . and it's not just starbrite{i knew about that14 years ago} me personally i cant take purple any shade of it so it's not a big secret now you know to use a different color in

I have had several nearly all-red tattoos done in the past, but not with starbright. I had two tattoos done last year with starbright and they both took ages to heal, and didn't heal evenly....I had similar reactions with one of them taking chunks of my skin off like someone previously mentioned...ugh. I want to get them touched up now but I'm going to wait until I can find a place that doesn't use starbright as apparently every reputable place in the city does. I am also allergic to penicillin but never considered that could have an effect on my reaction to tattoo ink. When I started having this issue, I asked a few of my friends who have quite a few tattoos and they both said they'd had the same problem when starbright red ink was used. :sigh:

I am alergic to penicilin and have recently got a tattoo using star bright red and had no reaction of any kind. In fact it is the most beautiful color red I have ever had. Not sure that is going to help. Probably just raise more questions.

I think thats what happened with mine. I got a tatto in early Nov. and it is still really bumpy and I am just getting over the itching! All the others healed within three weeks at the most. I was wondering why this one was taking so long. Someone told me that red ink just takes longer to heal but this is a little ridiculous... its been almost two months!

Don't confuse "Overworked tattooing" with "Allergic reaction". If chunks of skin and uneven healing, and long healing are an issue, there is a greater chance that your artist has pushed harder to get those colors in. The reactions are trauma related, not allergy related. Swollen, pushing, itching, or symptoms in other parts of your body are "Allergy" reactions. Peeling, poor healing, patchy, splitting, are over-working related. However, if RED doesn't go in, and it has to be worked-in, that is still partly the inks fault. Though, it could be entirely the artists fault. Wrong machine settings for that pigment size/type. (Pigments are not all the same size, some are more flake and less micro-powder. EG, Larger and harder to get into small holes.) Could also be that the artist is using too much Vaseline, which is water-proof, and a petroleum product. Vaseline is NOT good for injections. It is a TOPICAL ONLY product. Most reactions from a tattoo are from Vaseline injection. "Virgin Olive Oil" is a better lubrication, and is not as potentially harmful for injection. Also, mixing inks to get color causes chemical reactions. If you are not a chemist, DO NOT MIX PIGMENTS. The reason they provide specific colors is because of the chemical toxic reactions that mixing some colors have. The colors they sell are a complete separate formula, not a mixture of two colors. If you HAVE ALLERGIC REACTIONS, and YOU fail to tell the artist, that is your fault. You signed a waiver that states that you have told them of your medical conditions, and the you UNDERSTAND the dangers. That would include ASKING what inks they are using, and RESEARCHING what reactions they may have, prior to getting a tattoo. Just because you didn't, is not their fault. They are not hiding anything from you, you just failed to ask/look. It is not their JOB or REQUIREMENT to alert you of EVERY POSSIBLE complication with every ink an tool in their stock. Just as it is not the hospitals JOB or REQUIREMENT to alert you of EVERY POSSIBLE complication. Hospitals DO ask if there is a common "Death related" issue which may not be apparent, and is commonly an issue. Tattoo's have not caused death, to my knowledge, by injection of ANY inks or allergic reactions there of. Thus, they do not qualify. The only deaths related to inks, were due to counterfeit inks, and foreign dealers that purposely replaced formulas with known deadly chemicals, because they were cheaper to use. They have been shut-down, and they were NOT major brands. All of the MAJOR brands, by luck or by study, have formulas which cause the LEAST reactions. (Not saying they are without reactions, just that they are the least reactive on human flesh.) Brightness and longevity is another issue. You can't have the best of both worlds. It is either safe, or it is bright, rarely is it both. In the past, the brightest and longest lasting inks have been the ones that killed or severely toxified people, and they were removed from the market and production. (That is why you NEVER use another person formula for making HOME INK. The "Free formulas" are the ones that were banned and abandoned from the past. The pay formulas are the free formulas with a price tag. Manufactures will never sell you the formula, that would make them loose money, and make them libel for your use.)

Jason, I think it's nice that you offered so much info, but I don't think some of it is very accurate. Why should it be any different mixing colors, say blue and yellow, in my ink cap, or mixing it directly into the skin, say by fading blue out and bringing yellow highlights into it? We ALL mix colors in the skin almost everytime we do a color tattoo, so are we all causing dangerous chemical reactions in the sking of our clients? I hope not! As far as I know all of my clients are still healthy and happy. I'm also not entirely sure that it was 'foreigners' making the inferior and dangerous inks that are leaving or have left the market. I seem to recall cases of very not-foreign companys producing inferior inke with shocking ingredients in them. You may have meant 'foreign to the trade', which would probably be fair enough, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

And I think seeking an alternative to vaseline is wise, but it will be difficult insuring the sterility of olive oil of any other food industry product. Besides, though olive oil is good for the skin when used topically, there haven't been any studies to show how traces of the olive fruit left in virgin olive oil will react with broken skin and the healing process. Not that I know of. For the time being I'm sticking to sterile medical products.

I have a few tattoos but recently got my first one with red coloring in it. It was fine for the first few days but then I broke out in what looked like hives around the tattoo which have since turned to large, crater-like scabs. At first I worried that I was allergic to the red ink, but the irritation is not on the tattoo itself but the area around it. The only thing I did differently with my aftercare of this tattoo is that I used A&D rather than just a plain scented lotion for the first few days, because it was in a high movement and friction area. Someone said I may be allergic to the A&D and I should let the entire area dry out...any suggestions??

8 YEARS AND JUS CAME ACROSS STARBRIGHT HA!!!!!!!!! ITS GOOD NO PROBLEMS HEAR NOT MY MAIN INKS THOUGH USED THEM THE FIRST COUPLE YEARS BUT THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT HAVE REACTIONS TO SIMPLE THINGS LIKE WHO WROTE WATEVER ON THIS SITE HA!!!!!!!!

I just had two Tats done and both had problems so I went back to my tattoo artist and she realized the only spots that were affected, is where she used the starbrite red!! so now I have to wait for them to heal and go back for a tattoo overhaul.

i just wanted to add my part and that is that i have had problems with red. i have 14 tattoos with red in them and the red sometimes takes months too heal... i have had red pigments from five different manufacturers used on me and they All took much longer to heal and i lost alot of color. I dont know if it had anything to do with the fact i am allergic to penicillan. i have used starbright colors for years and out of thousands of tattoos only had a few reactions. the truth is that you are always going to get adverse reactions and if you have a bad reaction every couple of hundred tattoos too one pigment or another.. then it is probably just statistics as long as the artist is competant and the sterilization is good and you are buying from legitimate companies that sell quality goods you are doing all you can do. i doubt there will ever be true hypoallergenic colors. if someone knows of a brand that is hypo allergenic let me know!

Are you sure your not talking about scream? I have heard that their red was recalled. I just got my hand done with red starbrite and it's 99% healed after 10 days. I am in the market for some inks myself and am thinking about going with some starbrites and maybe mix up some different brands. The starbrite blue also looks much better than the eternal "true blue/white" that was put in my forearm a few months back, that got all raised and itchy and continues to do so.