Comedian Roseanne Arnold and her husband, Tom, thought it would be fun to show their love with matching tattoos. Now that the thrill is gone, they're faced with explaining to new suitors that the "Tom" and "Rosie" on their backsides are yesterday's news.
Like death and taxes, tattooing is forever, although that may be the least of our worries. If, as enthusiasts claim, tattooing and body piercing have gone mainstream in the '90s, they may be putting new populations at risk for the spread of dangerous blood-borne disease.Because both piercing and tattooing involve breaking the skin, both can spread hepatitis, tuberculosis, syphilis, warts and - theoretically - HIV, although no confirmed cases have been reported, says Dr. Barbara Reed, a Denver dermatologist and president of the Denver Medical Society.
That's why the homemade tattoos and self-pierced body parts that are showing up in schools have some professionals worried.
"We're looking at an adolescent population," says Dr. Elaine Scholes, a pediatrician at Denver Health Medical Center, "and adolescents are going to do things no matter what. You just have to give them information so they don't get into trouble."
Her message to teens interested in piercing or tattooing: Make sure the person piercing or tattooing you uses clean equipment, new needles and sterile techniques, and make sure he or she is a professional.
Raves (dances in isolated locations) sometimes offer free piercing and tattooing, and a recent Lollapalooza tour included a piercing and tattooing booth.
Even John Thomas cringes at the thought. At the tender age of 25, he's been drawing tattoos for eight years, including an estimated 200 hours' worth of work on himself. But as owner of Bound by Design studios in Denver and Boulder, he's the first to denounce free-lancers.
"No professional will work in that kind of an environment, and no professional will work for free," he says. That's one of the reasons he joined the Association of Professional Tattooists, a national organization that teaches sterile techniques and lobbies for industry regulation.
Few cities or states have serious regulation of the industry. Some cities have age requirements for piercing and tattooing - no one under 18, for example - although often even they aren't enforced.
In addition to the blood-borne diseases, piercing can cause nerve damage if it's done in the wrong spots. Two large nerves run down the sides of the tongue, for example, and clusters of nerves on the face and genital areas make both sites tricky to pierce, Thomas says.
Although tattooing and body piercing have been practiced for thousands of years, they've only recently come under the scrutiny of mainstream society.
In 1990 a survey of 10,000 U.S. households revealed only 3 percent of the population as a whole had tattoos. Two years later the New England Journal of Medicine reported brisk sales of tattoo ink, suggesting that the ranks of the tattooed were increasing rapidly.
Some credit high-profile movie stars and rock stars for tattoos' growth in popularity. Others pinpoint the 1993 Aerosmith "Cryin" video that featured Alicia Silverstone as the start of the pierced navel trend.
"A whole generation went, `Oh, Alicia does it, so can I,' " celebrity piercer Jan Cobb told "Interview" magazine. And in November 1995, "Sports Illustrated" did a five-page spread of star athletes' decorated body parts, including Mike Peluso's Stanley Cup, Trey Junkin's ankle-sized NFL insignia, Dennis Scott's portrait of his father and Steve Everitt's spine-length bleeding dagger.
The same year, Newsweek reported that "tattooing has hit its morning after." Between 12 and 20 million Americans have tattoos, and half say they want them removed.
"Try getting a job at the Gap with LOVE and HATE dyed into your knuckles," says the article.
Getting rid of tattoos is easier than it used to be, but it's still not a piece of cake.
"We've tried cutting them out, sandpapering the skin, bleaching them with salt and burning the skin with acid," says Dr. Bruce Baker, a plastic surgeon. New pulse-dye lasers blast the tattoo with a beam so strong it pulverizes the dye into particles small enough to be carried away by the bloodstream.
If you can find a plastic surgeon with a laser (Swedish Medical Center has one, as does Baker), expect to spend 10 times as much time and money getting the tattoo removed as you spent getting it.
Doctors charge by the "pulse," says Baker, and each laser pulse bleaches a 3-millimeter circle. The bigger the tattoo, the more pulses you'll require.
And many tattoos need more than one treatment, done several months apart to let the skin heal between times.
Expect to spend $500 to $2,000 over the span of a year or longer. And expect to feel at least as much pain as you did in the tattooist's chair. Patients say the laser pulse feels like they're getting splattered by bacon grease or snapped by rubber bands.
According to Victoria Lautman, author of "The New Tattoo," soft, fleshy areas such as biceps, buttocks or shoulders are less sensitive than the underarm and inner thigh, and bony areas like the ankle and spine are more painful.
Not so, counters Thomas. "They all hurt," he says.
Some other tattoo and piercing guidelines from health professionals:
- Don't get a tattoo if you have skin allergies. Several dye colors contain ingredients that can trigger allergic reactions, says Reed. Red can contain cinnabar, green can have chromic oxide, and yellow can make your skin more sensitive to the sun. Brown gets its color from a silica that can cause the skin to react by getting lumpy, Reed says.
In most cases, the skin gets itchy, inflamed or swollen in the areas colored by the dye it's allergic to. Sometimes corticosteroid cream will solve the problem; sometimes the dye must be removed, says Baker. Exposure to sunlight may make the allergic reaction worse.
- Choose your tattooist or piercer carefully. Make sure the office looks antiseptic, and that practitioners follow basic sanitary procedures: Equipment should be sterilized in autoclaves after each use; needles should be single-use or disposable; countertops, dye containers and chairs should be disinfected between patients; practitioners should wear rubber gloves.
- Avoid "scratchers," people who work out of their kitchens, the back of a van or a booth at a rave or rock concert. It's nearly impossible for them to maintain sterile conditions. For the same reasons, never get a homemade tattoo or share a needle.
- Expect the skin to be inflamed for a day or so, form a slight crust and peel within the first week. The area should be kept clean and moisturized until the skin is completely healed.
- Remember you can develop scar tissue, cysts or abscesses at any site you pierce. Cysts look like little marbles under the skin and may be harmless. Abscesses are pockets of infection that may need to be removed surgically or may just require antibiotic treatment.
- Pierced holes will grow back together after the earring is removed, but most leave behind a dimple-shaped scar.
- Any plans to have children and breastfeed them? Keep that in mind when pondering a pierced nipple.
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- Cher was one of the first, with tattoos on her arm, back leg and derriere.
- Roseanne (formerly Arnold) has threatened to bare hers.
- Mike Tyson has a portrait of Mao on one bicep, Arthur Ashe on the other.
- Johnny Depp had `WINONA FOREVER' etched on his right bicep, then had it cut to `WINO FOREVER' after their breakup.
- Charles Manson had a cross tattoo on his forehead.
- Shaquille O'Neal has a Superman logo on his left arm.
- Dennis Rodman had 11 in November (he may have more by now).
- Former Secretary of State George Shultz sits on a Princeton tiger.