How can you make tattoo ink at home?

Also see white tattoo ink, henna tattoo ink.

Ink, be it for tattoos or otherwise, consistes of a pigment and a carrier. The pigment yields the color, the carrier allows it to be used as ink, instead of say a pastle chalk.

It is clearly a bad idea to use homemade tattoo ink for permanent tattoos. You may end up poisoning yourself, or give yourself a fatal infection.

However, if you'd like to make a temporary tattoo or use it as practice ink for a tattoo machine using practice skin or a pig's hide, it may save you a couple pennies.

For the carrier, you can use alcohol, such as vodka or gin, or shampoo, or just water. You can experiment using a light cooking oil as a carrier. Or witch hazel, propylene glycol or glycerine make good carriers (by the way, glycerine is the stuff in wine that gives it more body, so it's a nice viscous substance that's easy to tattoo with).

For the pigment, pretty much anything you want that has color and can be finely ground. Since you're not going to use this as ink for a permanent tattoo you can be lax. As an inquisitive child, I made red ink out of a bloodroot plant, green out of dandelion leaves and brown out of hickory pulp. Ground up spices can make good earthy toned inks as well as flowers you gather up. Soot or ashes make good pigments for black ink.

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