Tattoo Making Research Paper

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he art of tattoo making can be traced all the way back to 6000 B.C.E. on the skin of a Peruvian mummy. The tool used for the original tattoos were a sharp point set in a wooden handle. The process of getting a tattoo involves using a sharp needle point to insert a colored pigment into the skin's dermis. "The first modern tattooing machine was modeled after Thomas Edison's engraving machine" (Halliday). Tattooing machines today use tiny needles to insert dye at a rate of 30 to 50000 times per minute. The needles puncture the skin's epidermis to reach the dermis where the ink is injected. The dermis is a layer composed of collagen fibers, nerves, glands, and blood vessels. Every time the needle penetrates the skin the body is alerted and the inflammorty process begins, triggering immune cells to go towards the site of penetration to repair the skin.

First macrophages swallow up any foreign material that detected, the ink, to clean up the site. The cells travel through the lymphatic system with some of the phages containing the ink travel to the lymph nodes while the other cells stay in the dermis. The cells have no way to get rid of the ink, so they stay and remain in the dermis which is visible through the skin. The dermal cells will stay until they die, and new cells will then engulf them and the ink inside
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"The ink is held between separate itty-bitty needles -- the same way ink is held between strands of hair on a paintbrush -- and when those needles puncture the skin, the ink is sucked down into your skin." (Feltman). The needle is there only to make holes into the dermis and then the needles break the surface tension of the ink, the ink will begin to seep its way deep into the dermis. The process is like water moving through narrow crevice using its cohesion and adhesion to move it