Ancient Adornment Revitalized

It has taken quite a long time for tattooing to rupture taboos and move from marginal groups sailors, soldiers and convicts) to youth and eventual acceptance by the adult generation as just another personal choice for decoration.

Use of tattoos of course is not new, it dates to the earliest epochs of humanity when primitive civilizations used tattoos as paint and jewellery to beautify their bodies.

Little by little contemporary artists erased tattoos' negative image - along with that of multiple piercing now found in navels, noses and lips as well as earlobes - beginning with hidden or discrete tattoos to ankles, arms, backs and just about anywhere on the body. Not a universal taste, nevertheless tattoos are now part of the aesthetic of the general population.

Scientists, however, continue to express concern that tattoos and piercing can cause or promote bacterial infections as well as incurable and even deadly diseases like Hepatitis C and AIDS.

Most of the time, such infections are caused by non disposable needles and insufficiently sterilized equipment. To be safe, pigments used in tattoos should have a mineral origin and be applied with a local anaesthesia subcutaneously by a sharp, thin disposable needle.