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Keen to get tatted but terrified of needles? We have life-changing news, because a London company has just invented a new way of tattooing that it claims is totally painless.
Yep, you read that right, it’s now possible to get inked without popping a couple of painkillers and faffing around with numbing cream.
London biotech company CipherX has developed new technology that uses patches containing microneedles made with tattoo ink and a dissolvable polymer. Rather than using a tattoo gun, the patch is pushed directly onto the skin and left there for 15 minutes – enough time for the polymer needles to dissolve and the ink to sink in.
Thanks to the teeny tiny size of the microneedles, they don’t penetrate as deeply into the skin as a normal tattoo, which is what makes the process painless. Cool, huh? Better yet, CipherX says no aftercare is required, so you can skip the clingfilm or second skin.
‘When you scale the needle down and you apply it to your skin, you don't really feel the penetration anymore because it doesn't actually touch your pain receptors,’ founder and CEO Ferdinand Kohle told Dezeen.
So far, the company has applied 500 of its microdot tattoos, following a launch last month. The brand currently sells 13 different designs including a cross, a butterfly and a star, all priced at £50 a pop.
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