Tuesday 22 October 2013

TATTOOS

Once confined to bikers and seamen, tattoos are increasingly popular in Denmark, especially amongst women and the young. It is estimated that about 15% of the population now has a tattoo. My daughter has one, for instance, a rather tasteful owl between her shoulder blades.

Yet they are not without risk. Around one in eight tattoos causes problems; itching, swelling, rashes or worse. The most common reason is when the tattoo is coloured, particularly if it includes red. The chemical used to make the ink red apparently reacts badly with a lot of people, green and yellow for some reason give fewer problems.

Since more than 40% of tattoos have some colour in them, this is potentially quite a big problem. Which is presumably why one in five people are unhappy with their tattoo, and a quarter of those subsequently get it removed.

The Health and Environment Ministries have combined to run a campaign alerting people to the dangers of tattoos. The slogan is "think before you ink", which sounds a lot snappier in English than it does in Danish.

Walter Blotscher
Posted by Walter Blotscher at 18:12

2 comments:

  1. Michael22 October 2013 at 18:20

    That is so very Dad.

    When I lived on the beach in Zanzibar I saw a lot of tatoos, mostly on women. Many of these tattoos could only be admired publicly when the owner was in swim wear. These were often called tramp stamps

    Vicky Pryce, writng about her time at East Sutton women's prison, where many of the residents are from middle class back grounds, said she was suprised to find she was alone in having no tattoo.

    Tattoos are very alluring.

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  2. Joachim Satchwell27 October 2013 at 21:50

    Your daughter has 3 - just FYI

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