Tattoo ink sits in the dermis layer, or second layer, of the skin permanently because ink molecules are “too big for the body to break down,” Goergen explained in a phone interview.

At the same time, I didn’t see anyone in the tattoo photos plastered on the walls who had brown skin like mine: skin the color of milk chocolate with tints of bronze and golds. As much as I ...

If someone said there was a tattoo that felt and looked real, but would fade within nine to 15 months, would you try it? I did. In January of 2022, I went to a now-shuttered Brooklyn studio ...