MILWAUKEE – In just about any professional setting, it would be almost impossible to notice anything different about Caitlin Sabel’s wrists. They might appear a tad scarred, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Look at them under a black light, though, and the words glow. Then, in an old-English font, her left wrist reads “regret” and her right “nothing.”
Sabel has an ultraviolet, or UV, tattoo. Like the tattoos she has of the Egyptian god Anubis (on her calf), paw prints (on her back) or her nickname, Cat (on the inside of her lip), Sabel’s wrist inking would go unseen in a workplace that might frown upon such displays of individuality. That’s because it was done with white ultraviolet ink that can’t be seen without a black light.
“Some jobs frown upon tattoos that are visible,” said Sabel, who paid $80 for the tattoo in February 2005. “I wouldn’t want to have to cover them up all the time.”
The UV tattoo ink, which has been on the market for about five years, has become more popular in the last year, said William Scherbarth, who owns the Electric Ink tattoo parlor in Columbus, Wis. His customers ask for the ink to both hide tattoos in regular light and to add extra touches to designs done with traditional tattoo ink.
The ink glows only under black lights, which are often present at dance clubs, raves and concerts.
“They like that they can go ahead and get a dragon done on their arm and have the UV ink put into the eyes or into the flames from the mouth,” Scherbarth said. “When you put them under the light, they almost look neon. They’re very brilliant.”
Another tattoo artist who does UV tattoos, T.J. Rappel of Needle Freaks parlor in Menasha, Wis., said he often uses the ink to touch up existing tattoos.
“Say you have some glowing rays or a glowing halo that might look cool with more neon color; we can do that,” Rappel said.
Like Sabel, a 20-year-old woman who works third shift at a ShopKo and attends classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Mequon campus, some of Scherbarth’s customers have UV ink drawn on their hands that can’t be seen without using a black light, he said.
“I do a lot of knuckle names,” he said. “They tend to like it. It’s something that’s hidden.”
The UV ink tends to be slightly more expensive than traditional tattoo ink. Scherbarth said he charges about $20 more for work that involves the ink, both for the ink and the added labor that goes into drawing the tattoo. For UV work, he has to use a hand-held UV light while applying the special ink.
Marisa DiMattia, a New York attorney who is the editor of needled.com, a Web site devoted to a “high brow” discussion of tattoo culture, said the UV tattoos have split the close-knit community of tattoo artists. Those who use the ink, as one might expect, say it is as safe and permanent as standard tattoo ink. But others recall the phosphorescent inks that came into use in tattoo parlors in the 1980s and 1990s and are shying away.
“Those inks were more dangerous,” DiMattia said. “Some tattooers remember that and have an automatic prejudice.”
Some artists are reluctant to use the UV ink because the product is still relatively new to the market, said the editor of the trade publication Tattoo Artists Magazine, who calls himself “Crash.”
“Who knows what that stuff’s going to do?” he said. “It could be 10 years or 15 years before we know what the results and effects are going to be.”
Scherbarth declared his ink safe.
“A lot of old-school tattoo artists are stuck in their ways,” he said. “They trust what they trust, and they won’t take a step forward.”
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DiMattia, whose tattoos cover both of her arms from the shoulder to the wrist, said she’s passed on UV tattoos so far, over concerns that she may be allergic to the ink. But for many people who get tattooed to try to make themselves stand out, the addition of black light ink allows them to take that effort one step further.
“If you think of tattoos as an art, it’s another technique to make it more unique and more original,” DiMattia said. “I think it goes along those lines where it’s just adding another element to the art. And they look cool, too.”
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