Tramp stamp or tribal tattoo? I was my own tattoo artist for the day

Getting a tattoo is a life decision. Once the ink’s under your skin, you can only have it removed with painful laser treatments. But, if it doesn’t penetrate the skin in the first place, you won’t need to worry about that. This is exactly what the tattoo pens from Kreul are for. You can paint your skin with them and then remove it all without leaving any trace. The images of the arms and hands on the packaging suggest the product is aimed at children, but I try it out anyway.

Tattoo yourself

The packaging contains four pens in pink, blue, green and black as well as three stencils. For my first tattoo I try the butterfly motif and remove the film from the adhesive stencil. I fill in the empty areas with the pens and remove the stencil. The edges are slightly blurred, but the butterfly’s recognisable. I can’t do it again because the stencil’s adhesive is too weak and won’t stick to my skin a second time.

Drawing directly on skin

Next, I draw my own designs directly on my skin. It works quite well. I’m not going for any hyper-realistic designs. Not just because I don’t know how, but because the tip of the pen bends very easily, thereby leaving a thicker line. So there’s no chance I’ll be able to do any filigree drawings. But to be able to imagine how my arms and legs would look fully tattooed, it’s enough. The pen doesn’t sting your skin and the colour’s easy to apply. Five minutes later, my skin’s full of sketches. I feel like I’ve been transported back to primary school.

How well does the ink wash off the skin?

It says on the packaging that the ink isn’t waterproof so it should come off easily. I hold my arm under the running water and the paint is washed away immediately. For the last remnants, I use soap and scrub them off.

What if it gets on clothes?

According to the manufacturer’s instructions, I should be able to wash the ink out of textiles at 30 degrees. To test this, I take an old cloth, draw a black cross on it and then hold the fabric under the water. Most of the ink disappears again and the last bit comes out with a little washing-up liquid. I’ve not tried it on white clothing to test whether the colour completely disappears.

What’s in the ink anyway?

The pen colour disappears when I wash it off, as if it had never existed – I’m impressed. I wish I’d painted with these markers when I was at primary school. Back then, there were only two types of «tattoos» for me. The «oh-no-my-fountain–pen-is-exploding» spots and the self-drawn ones. With the latter, I was always told off by adults along the lines of «the ink’s carcinogenic». In fact, Stiftung Warentest was able to detect carcinogenic ingredients in some crayons (page in German).

So I take a look at the packaging of the tattoo pens: water-based cosmetic ink, dermatologically tested and no parabens. Sounds good, right? Still, I want to check the listed ingredients with the CodeCheck App. The result is devastating (page in German). The majority of the ingredients in the pens are classified as problematic. Two of them are even considered very questionable. The ink also contains two poorly degradable polymers. They’re part of the microplastics that are difficult to filter out of the water, then absorbed by fish and end up on our plates. What a shame. If the pencils had fewer red-labelled ingredients, I’d be all over them.