Throughout history, body art has been a part of culture, fashion, and heritage. While the styles of tattoos have changed drastically through the years, the basics of how tattoos are made have changed very little.

In ancient times, various methods were used all consisting of ink on a pointed needle/stick. However, the first modern tattooing machine was designed after Thomas Edison’s engraving machine.

From a logical stand point, one stick themselves with a needle with ink and it will enter the body. However, all cells regenerate to become brand new cells every so many weeks/months/years depending on the cell type. This leads to the concept that tattoos should just flake off as new skin is made correct? Obviously… That’s not true.

So what really makes a tattoo permanent?

When the needle pierces the skin, it enters deep enough to inject the dye into the dermis. Because the body registers this needle and ink as an invasive intruder, the general immune system heads to work. Large white blood cells called macrophages enter the extracellular matrix of the dermis engulfing and digesting as much of the ink as possible.

But here is where it gets trippy.

The macrophages cannot carry away all the ink globules, which initiates a response for the dermal cells to help. The dermal cells will begin to ingest the macrophages and ink globules through endocytosis for each cell contains lysosomes, which are essentially enzymes that act as garbage disposals. However, what the dermal cell doesn’t realize, is that the ink globule is too big to digest and will remain intact the cytosol (cell fluid).

This suspension of the ink globules in dermal cells is exactly what causes a tattoo to remain in the skin.

But don’t cells die? What happens when the dermal cells containing the ink globules die?

When any cell dies, a new cell will engulf it through endocytosis and reuse its components through breaking it down in the lysosome. However, just as before, the ink globule is too big to be broken down and will now remain in the new dermal cell’s cytosol.

This essentially means that the ink globule will continue to live for years, through many generations of dermal cells.

Over many years of this engulf and digest process, the globule will start to lose its outermost later, and this is what causes tattoos to fade. However, the globule will never fully breakdown (unless done so via laser removal) which makes it permanent.

Next time you get a tattoo, remember that the flaking of ink you see coming off is just the ink trapped in the epidermis that is easily removed. With having the same amount of permanence as the ink in your dermis... It looks like the art of tattooing is not going anywhere.

Inspiration for the article and gifs given credit to TED-Ed.