- Jan 14, 2013
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You know, test the waters?
www.insidehook.com
Ephemeral is a new tattoo shop in Williamsburg — a seemingly unremarkable occurrence if you’ve ever walked around the Brooklyn neighborhood. It was once the beating heart of the hipster revolution and the mountains of tattoos that came with it.
This one, however, is slightly different. The ink used at Ephemeral, which was developed over the past six years by two of the four co-founders (the two that just happened to be PhDs in chemical engineering), naturally fades over the course of 9 to 15 months. The founders met at NYU and came from a diverse array of households, all of which were anti-tattoo, so of course they thought, “What if we only do this for, like, a year?”
What’s special about the ink is that it is made from “medical grade, bioabsorbable, and biocompatible polymers, with carefully chosen high-quality pigments that are routinely used in foods, cosmetics, and other products.” Basically, normal tattoo ink clumps up when it enters your skin and is too large for the body to successfully remove (this is a simplified explanation, but you get the point). Ephemeral ink does the exact same thing, but the clumps are much smaller, so the body can eventually break down and then safely remove them.
A novel concept, so I decided to go get my own “made-to-fade”’ tattoo.....

The Tattoos at NYC’s Newest Shop Are Real — But They Only Last a Year
Ephemeral in Williamsburg pioneered a new type of ink that fades naturally over time

Ephemeral is a new tattoo shop in Williamsburg — a seemingly unremarkable occurrence if you’ve ever walked around the Brooklyn neighborhood. It was once the beating heart of the hipster revolution and the mountains of tattoos that came with it.
This one, however, is slightly different. The ink used at Ephemeral, which was developed over the past six years by two of the four co-founders (the two that just happened to be PhDs in chemical engineering), naturally fades over the course of 9 to 15 months. The founders met at NYU and came from a diverse array of households, all of which were anti-tattoo, so of course they thought, “What if we only do this for, like, a year?”
What’s special about the ink is that it is made from “medical grade, bioabsorbable, and biocompatible polymers, with carefully chosen high-quality pigments that are routinely used in foods, cosmetics, and other products.” Basically, normal tattoo ink clumps up when it enters your skin and is too large for the body to successfully remove (this is a simplified explanation, but you get the point). Ephemeral ink does the exact same thing, but the clumps are much smaller, so the body can eventually break down and then safely remove them.
A novel concept, so I decided to go get my own “made-to-fade”’ tattoo.....