In a society built on monetizing the suffering of animals- a lot of things you would expect to be vegan, are not. Unfortunately this includes some tattoo inks! The black ink is mostly the problem, since most types contain bone char. Other problems are gelatin and glycerin, and some other colored dies also contain shellac and pigment from beetles. Lucky for those of us who have/or would like to have tattoos in the future; a lot of tattoo shops already use vegan inks or you can request them to be used.
Some vegan friendly tattoo inks include:
- Eternal
- Starbrite
- Skin candy
- Stable color
- Fusion ink
- Kuro Sumi
- Dynamic
- Intenze
(I myself have my tattoos in Eternal ink)
There are a few other problems you may run across which the bite sized vegan has went over in detail here, but this is meant to be a quick outline so I will list some alternatives to all of it down below as well!
Skin lubricant (Usually petroleum jelly or vaseline, which is iffy)
- Hustle butter
- Shea butter
- Jojoba butter
- Olive oil
Soap (To clean the area)
Dr. Bonners and Myers come to mind! We have a whole article on vegan soaps here.
Razor (Glycerin (moisturizing) strip isn’t vegan)
- Preserve brand razors are vegan friendly
Transfer paper
- Stencil stuff
- Reprofx
Aftercare
- After ink
- Black cat
- Lush dream cream
- Tattoo tonic
And there are a LOT more! Emily posted a whole list of vegan inks, lubricants, soaps, aftercare items, AND vegan tattoo shops! So check that out and check out these cool vegan tattoos, send us in yours if you want to be put in the article! Special thanks to Jona Weinhofen for letting me put him in here 🙂
Angeon
22 year old vegan animal activist and dog groomer currently living in Washington D.C. Mommy to two dogs, two birds, a cat and a rabbit.
