How do tattoos work?

Tattoos. Permanent artwork on your skin. How is that physically possible?

Process:

Tattoos, whether old school hand-tap tattoos or modern tattoo gunning, involves injecting ink into the dermis of the body. The dermis is the layer of skin that sits right under the epidermis, which is the layer comes in contact with the every day world. Through the injection process, the ink sits in the dermis in different sized molecules. As the tattoo process finishes, the body sends white blood cells to remedy what the body thinks to be a wound (the tattoo). These white blood cells carry off all of the smallest sized ink molecules as the body heals; the white blood cells are unable to carry off the larger ink molecules, leaving them sitting in the dermis permanently.

Ink:

Tattoo inks are comprised of two parts: carrier and colorant. Carrier is a fluid that aids the colorant in reaching its final location and can be made up of a variety of things from alcohol to witch hazel. Colorants are intense compounds that can reflect the light of the visible spectrum without needing a chemical reaction (making it safer than dyes to sit in the skin). The addition of fillers and binding agents help tattoo ink remain sterile and safe.

Modern inks are designed with this process in mind, and coupled with technology incorporated into modern tattooing machines, the tattoos of today are bold and crisp, and tend to stay that way. Ink used decades ago have lent to blurred and blown out tattoos as the body eventually succeeds in the molecule-removal process.

Who knows what tattoos will look like in the future?