A Nanoengineer Teamed Up With Rihanna’s Tattoo Artist To Make Smarter Ink

Mad-scientist kind of moments happen fairly often for nanoengineer Carson Bruns. A few months ago in his lab at the University of Colorado-Boulder, he tested his latest invention on his own arm and asked a colleague for help.

“We were like, ‘OK, we’re going to tattoo ourselves. Can you help us today?’” he said.

The tattoo is like a freckle, a little blue dot. But he can turn it on and off. Like the way a mood ring changes color with temperature, this tattoo changes with light: Ultraviolet light to turn it on, daylight (or even a flashlight) to turn it off.

“You can go to court and turn it off, and then go to the party and turn it on. And then go to Grandma’s house and turn it off,” said Bruns, who is affiliated with the university’s ATLAS Institute, which prides itself on fostering out-of-the-box ideas.

Bruns started a company with tattoo-artist-to-the-stars Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy, along with a former doctoral student. Early next year, they plan to release their first product, Magic Ink, to a group of handpicked artists. The business partners have long-term hopes for smart tattoos that have a health value, but cosmetics are cheaper and simpler to get to consumers than medical devices. So, that’s where they’re starting.

The new ink will enter a market in a moment of flux for the regulation of cosmetics. The FDA steps in to urge a recall if an ink causes a bacterial outbreak but traditionally has not exercised its regulatory might over tattoo ink products as it does with other products that go into the body. (Tattoo inks don’t even have to be sterile.) But following the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022, the FDA is expanding its authority over tattoo manufacturers. The agency is now accepting comments on draft guidance about tattoo ink preparation.

Carson Bruns demonstrates how to turn his tattoo on and off: UV light turns it on; a regular flashlight turns it off.

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Rae Ellen Bichell

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KFF Health News

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“To be honest with you, I don’t think either the FDA or the tattoo ink industry really knows what that’s going to look like,” said John Swierk, a chemist at the State University of New York-Binghamton. But, he said, the law does mean “the FDA has a new charge to really ensure that labeling is correct and good manufacturing practices are being followed.”

Bruns said Magic Ink is made of particles of dye, encased in beads of plexiglass — the same polymethyl methacrylate material in those dermal fillers people use to plump their lips. Dermal fillers are FDA-approved, whereas tattoo ink contents can be like a black box.

Swierk said many of the tattoo pigments in use now have been around a long time, which gives some users a base comfort level about their safety. But a new material comes with new unknowns.

“If somebody is going to get tattooed with Magic Ink, they have to accept a degree of uncertainty about what the future is going to hold with that ink,” Swierk said.

A series of tattoo inks change color with exposure to UV light.

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Rae Ellen Bichell

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KFF Health News

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It’s $100 for a half-ounce bottle. That’s a lot more than regular ink costs. If the product takes off, the University of Colorado-Boulder will also benefit, as it owns the intellectual property.

Bang Bang is among a few dozen people, many of them tattoo artists, who are already wearing the ink in their skin.

Tattoo artist Selina Medina has been in the business more than 20 years and used to work for an ink manufacturer. She spends a lot of time advocating for tattoo safety, volunteering with several national and international groups focused on the issue.

“I’d probably give it a year in the market before I would buy it. But it does look really interesting,” said Medina, who is on the board of directors for the Alliance of Professional Tattooists.

Medina hopes this ink is different from the UV inks she saw pop up in the 2000s, which would glow under a black light.

“It seemed like an awesome idea, but then we noticed that it faded really fast,” she said. “It would just disappear. We didn’t know what it did. We didn’t know where it went. And that was just kind of like, ‘What the hell is this stuff?’”

She expects her customers will be clamoring for Magic Ink before she’s ready to purchase it.

Looking further afield, some companies are already investing in technology embedded in the skin. A European company called DSruptive makes injectable thermometers. It said about 5,000 people — living primarily in Sweden, Japan, the U.S., and the United Kingdom — have had the devices installed. Ali Yetisen, an engineer at Imperial College London, said for companies eyeing tech embedded in the skin, diabetes is a big focus.

“That’s where the money is. Most companies invest in this area,” said Yetisen. The dream is to create something like a tattoo that could measure blood sugar in real time, and be long-lasting, he said.

“That’s the holy grail of all medical diagnostics,” he said.

While Bruns’ inventions sense external factors like light and radiation, for manufacturers looking to develop in-body tech that reacts to the blood, there are other scientific hurdles. The immune system forms little shells around foreign bodies, effectively putting up a wall between a sensor and the blood.

No one has really figured a way around that yet, said Yetisen, but a lot of people are trying.

Celebrity tattoo artist Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy shows a small red heart tattoo created with Magic Ink.

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Jorge Torres

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