Category: Campus Life

My piece today is informed by an incident I witnessed between three young “ladies” while waiting on the queue in a supermarket to pay for purchases. Two ladies in front of me made a snide comment to the hearing of another lady who had a tattoo slightly above the cleavages of her front “asset.” Voicing their disdain and reservations, they wondered why she is exposing her sensitive parts for everyone to see just to “show off”. The tattooed lady did not take their reservation lying down. She blurted out: “Is it because you don’t have beautiful b- -bs like I do that you’re jealous?”

Your guess is as good as mine about what happened next. The supermarket security personnel and some of the men present had to restrain the “ladies” before their argument degenerated into fisticuffs and disturb the peace of other customers. However, this was not before unprintable vulgar invectives had been viciously exchanged.

That incident got me worried about the tattoo trend among our youths for quite some time. This was certainly not the first time I’ll be seeing young men and ladies engraving tattoos on their bodies. For the women, they seem to have the penchant of engraving tattoos in sensitive areas of their bodies and exposing same for all to see. I often wonder; of all the things in the world to do, why would someone spend hours engraving permanent features in his or her body in the name of fashion or trend?

This trend – I must point out – is not a Nigerian problem alone, but a global one as a frighteningly growing number of teens and young adults are injecting dangerous chemicals under their skin in the name of art and self-expression. A trend that started growing in America and Europe in the early ‘90s, tattooing soon became so popular that 36 percent of Americans aged 25-29 had at least one body tattoo by 2003. The numbers have undoubtedly risen since then as tattoos are now well-entrenched in the mainstream. Even the media at times glorifies tattoo culture.

A few days after that incident among many others, I received a tweet from a friend, which directed me to a bizarre story in Huffington Post. In the story, a 26-year-old Englishwoman Torz Reynolds learned her boyfriend of two years was cheating on her. She decided she needed to “teach” him a lesson by removing her tattoo which had the name of her cheating boyfriend in a part of her body.

In a rather unbelievable way she used a scalpel to remove the entire section of skin where the words “Chopper’s B- – -h” were tattooed and then sent the skin – with the blood and all – to him with the message “Now he knows never to mess with me again!”

According to the Daily Mail (where the story was culled by Huffington Post), she numbed the area with Vasocaine spray before slicing a rectangle around the area, then using tweezers to peel it off. She posted an image of the bloody result to Facebook in December. When a friend called the act “crazy,” she replied, “Crazy was getting his name tattooed in the first place… cutting it out was just necessary”! She then conceded that she may end up getting someone else’s name tattooed on her body. Who that “someone” would be is left to your imagination.

To get a hook on this, I made several calls to some of our campus correspondents’ to assist me in researching the trend on their campuses and from the reports I got it appeared I opened a can of worms! One of them spoke out immediately I gave him the assignment and said: “Sir, thank you for beaming your searchlight on this ugly trend, we expect you to write more on such negative issues. Our ladies have gone mad, they even have tattoos on their private parts and their behind, nowhere is private anymore. They take pictures of their private parts with tattoos and send to their boyfriend!”

The agreement was almost unanimous: the trend is very popular with a fair number of students’ on campuses having tattoos without really realising the negative health implications. The men are not left out as their favourite spots are their shoulders, chests and necks.

What really is a tattoo then: A tattoo is a permanent mark or design made on your skin with pigments inserted through pricks into the skin’s top layer. Typically, the tattoo artist uses a hand-held machine that acts much like a sewing machine, with one or more needles piercing the skin repeatedly. With every puncture, the needles insert tiny ink droplets. The process – which is normally done without anesthetics – causes a small amount of bleeding and slight to potentially significant pain.

According to experts, tattoos breach the skin, which means that skin infections and other complications are possible. Specific risks include: Allergic reactions, Blood borne diseases, MRI complications etc.

In addition to allergic reactions and the unknown long-term health effects from the metal salts and carrier solutions that make up tattoo inks, there are other health risks involved. Skin infections, psoriasis, dermatitis and other chronic skin conditions, and tumors (both benign, and malignant) have all been associated with tattoos.

Due to the use of needles in tattoo application, there is also the risk of contracting infectious diseases such as tetanus, herpes simplex virus, staph, HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis B and C, and even Syphilis. And those with tattoos might not be able to get a life-saving MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) test if they need one—some hospitals and testing locations will refuse to do an MRI on people with body tattoos due to the metal particles in the tattoo, which may cause a burning pain during the test.

I need to point out here that tattooing is not a recent phenomenon; it is an art form that has been used for centuries by tribal societies in religious rites and as a natural part of life. At first banned and then appropriated by Western culture, tattoos have recently developed as a decorative art of self-expression used by some to celebrate events, memorialise a departed loved one, or as a show of commitment to a life partner. In the past, there is one thing for sure: all tattoos have a story. What’s not so clear is exactly what those involved in it are injecting into their skin for art’s sake.

However, a far cry from their tribal predecessors made with dyes from the natural environment, many of today’s tattoos contain an unknown conglomeration of metallic salts (oxides, sulphides, and selenides), organic dyes or plastics.

A European Commission’s report on the health risks of tattooing noted that close to 40 percent of organic colorants used in permanent tattoos in Europe are not even approved for use on the skin as a cosmetic ingredient and just fewer than 20 percent of the colorants studied contained a carcinogenic aromatic amine. Many of the chemicals found were originally intended for use in writing and printer inks, as well as automobile paints. These inks are injected deep enough into the skin that often tattoos will not even be destroyed by severe burns.

This is an area where regulations and standards are held high, so you can imagine what happens in our clime where regulation is often lax.

Removing tattoos are a different ballgame altogether. If a tattooed individual wants his tattoo removed, he should be aware that some of the pigments used are phototoxic and may break down into toxic chemicals in the body when removed with UV light or laser – common techniques used in tattoo removal. The toxic end-products eventually wind up in the kidneys and liver, adding to your total body burden.

Ideally, it behooves on tattoo practitioners to tell their clients the negative impact of the art. However, in the absence of clear cut regulation to protect the consumer from unqualified tattoo artists, unhygienic tools and application methods, and highly toxic inks, the best advice for the youth of today is abstinence from tattoos.

My advice to our youths is this: don’t trust tattoo artists or ink manufacturers to give you accurate and complete information on the toxicity of the pigments and dyes being used—at least not just yet. They’re in it for the business of making money, health or other issues are secondary and far from their minds.