Tattoo inks (permanent and temporary)
This page is a scaffolded entry for HMTc Taxonomy v2.0 Category 13 (Cosmetics and Personal Care — Leave-on), Row 14: Tattoo inks (permanent and temporary). Evidence ingest into this row is in progress; this page is the routing destination for source-page declarations of products: [tattoo-inks]. Sections below are populated by the routing layer (CLAUDE.md Part 5b) as sources land. Where a section is empty, the row has not yet accumulated contributing sources of the required kind.
Literature scope
The Heavy Metal Index source corpus is currently focused on food and food-contact materials. This page documents an HMTc Taxonomy v2.0 row in the category Cosmetics and Personal Care — Leave-on for which no peer-reviewed primary or government sources have yet been ingested. The page exists as the routing destination for future ingest. Until sources land, the literature-evidence sections below are deliberately empty rather than guessed; HMTc certification thresholds for products in this row continue to be developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this public page.
Who this page is for
- Brand legal teams
- What the peer-reviewed and regulatory literature reports for heavy-metal occurrence in Tattoo inks (permanent and temporary), with applicable regulatory caps and source-traceable findings. Use this page to evaluate certification or class-action exposure on a literature-anchored basis.
- Brand regulatory affairs / QA
- The current evidence base for Tattoo inks (permanent and temporary), the levers most-effective at reducing heavy-metal load, and the applicable regulatory limits with jurisdiction and basis.
- Retailers and category buyers
- The row-level assortment risk profile and where the literature distinguishes higher-risk from lower-risk product configurations within this row.
- HMT&C staff (internal)
- HMT&C certification thresholds for products in this row are developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this public page. The Index and HMT&C operate on the same evidence base but apply different publication rules; see the methodology for the separation.
Methodology
This page reports what the cited sources say about heavy-metal concentrations in tattoo inks (permanent and temporary). Speciation is non-substitutable per CLAUDE.md Part 14 (iAs vs tAs, MeHg vs tHg, Cr-VI vs total Cr). Basis is preserved (finished-product as sold unless the source specifies otherwise; see each row for the basis label). Non-detect handling follows each source’s reporting convention. Pooling is avoided across LOD/LOQ, period, geography, and analytical-basis differences. HMT&C certification thresholds for products in this row are developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this page; this public page reports literature evidence only.
The applicable regulatory jurisdictions for this row are: FDA cosmetics, EU Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009.
Literature Evidence Summary
Pending ingest. The routing layer will surface direct-row-fit sources here as they are added to the corpus with products: [tattoo-inks] in source-page frontmatter.
Source Evidence Inventory
Pending ingest. The routing layer populates this section from the source-page set declaring products: [tattoo-inks].
Broad Product Context: Author-Scope Index
Pending ingest. The routing layer surfaces sources whose author-stated scope is broader than this row (route_kind: broad_product_context) as they are added.
Federal/Regulatory Limits vs Field Findings
Pending ingest. The applicable regulatory jurisdictions for this row are recorded in the page frontmatter; the crosswalk table is generated by tools/apply-product-crosswalk-sections.mjs once regulation pages and field-evidence sources are routed to this row with structured limit values.
Levers to reduce contamination
Practical interventions to reduce heavy-metal load in this row, ordered by impact magnitude. Each lever names the magnitude of the effect with a cited source; cross-links to dedicated Mitigation pages where they exist.
- Sourcing levers — Pending ingest.
- Agronomic levers — Pending ingest. (See Agronomic mitigation for general agronomic mitigation context.)
- Processing levers — Pending ingest. (See Processing mitigation.)
- Formulation levers — Pending ingest. (See Formulation mitigation.)
- Testing and QC levers — Pending ingest. (See Testing and quality-control mitigation when published.)
- Packaging and storage levers — Pending ingest. (See Packaging and storage mitigation when published.)
How standards math uses this page
HMT&C certification thresholds for this row are developed under the certification program at heavymetaltested.com, not on this page. The row-standard for this row is an aggregate computed from the contributing source pool in the row’s native finished-product basis; it is not a per-source decoration of any single value cited on this page. This public page reports literature evidence only.
Historical recalls and enforcement
Pending ingest. Regulatory events (recalls, enforcement actions, import alerts) relevant to this row will be added as agency records are ingested into the corpus.
Sources
Pending ingest. The Source Legend below is auto-generated by tools/evidence/build-source-legend.mjs once source pages declaring products: [tattoo-inks] are added.
Sources
Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.
| # | Citation | Year | Type | Used on this page for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cwielag-Drabek et al. 2025. Heavy Metal Content in Tattoo and Permanent Makeup Inks and European Standards-Is There Still a Health Risk?, Toxics | 2025 | Peer-reviewed | EU Pb, Cd, Zn, Cr, Cr-VI, Ni, Cu, iAs, Co, Sb, Se, Mn, tHg occurrence in Commercial tattoo inks, permanent makeup inks, and dual-use inks purchased in the European Union in 2022-2023 (n=41) |
| 2 | Hardy 2025. Substances in tattoo inks and permanent make-up: restriction decision, UK REACH restriction decision report, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 2025 | Government report | GB Ni, Cr-VI occurrence in UK REACH regulatory decision for tattoo inks and permanent make-up, drawing on the Health and Safety Executive Agency… |
| 3 | CIRS – C&K Testing (Hangzhou C&K Testing Technic Co. 2023. REACH ANNEX XVII — Restrictions on the Manufacture, Placing on the Market and Use of Certain Dangerous Substances, Mixtures and Articles, CIRS – C&K Testing (Hangzhou C&K Testing Technic Co., Ltd), Hangzhou, China; downloadable consolidated reproduction of Annex XVII to EU REACH Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006; document header states ‘Last update: 2023-07-17’. 64 pages, two-column ‘Column 1 (substance or group) / Column 2 (conditions of restriction)’ tabular layout reproducing entries 1 through 77. | 2023 | Industry | EU Pb, Cd, tHg, iHg, Cr-VI, Ni, tAs, Sn occurrence in Not a primary-measurement study. The document is a third-party reproduction of Annex XVII to EU REACH Regulation (EC)… |
| 4 | Gautam 2023. Health Risk Assessment: Heavy Metals (Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, and Nickel) in Tattoo Ink (Intra-Dermal Contact), Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited (ESR) client report FW23035, prepared for Manatu Hauora/Te Whatu Ora | 2023 | Government report | NZ/EU/US Ba, Pb, Ni, Cr-VI, tHg, Cd, Sb, tAs occurrence in Agency health-risk assessment using maximum tattoo-ink metal concentrations selected from the 2012 New Zealand Ministry of Health survey… (n=169) |
| 5 | Zafarzadeh et al. 2018. Assessment of cadmium and lead concentrations in different types of cosmetics products consumed in Iran, National Journal of Physiology, Pharmacy and Pharmacology 8(8):1200-1204 | 2018 | Peer-reviewed | IR/CN/TR Cd, Pb occurrence in 264 cosmetic products purchased from shops in Gorgan, Iran from September 2016 to March 2017: 24 samples each… (n=264) |
| 6 | Piccinini et al. 2016. Safety of tattoos and permanent make-up. Final report, JRC Science for Policy report EUR 27947 EN, JRC101601; prepared for DG JUST under Administrative Arrangement N. 2014-33617 | 2016 | Government report | EU/CH/DE tAs, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cr-VI, Cu, tHg, Ni, Pb, Se, Sb, Sn, Zn occurrence in JRC synthesis of RAPEX notifications and national tattoo/permanent-make-up ink surveillance: 126 RAPEX alerts for tattoo/PMU inks through 2015… |
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ae6c129 | 2026-07-01 | feat(auth): large login + role-based signup screens (design, burgundy) |