No regrets? I tried the first ever made to fade tattoo dazeddigital.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dazeddigital.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It may sound like science fiction, but it’s not. The ink was developed by Brennal Pierre and Vandan Shah, both of whom hold Ph.D.’s in Chemical Engineering from New York University. “Whether tattoos could be made to fade was a really good question that got us thinking,” says Shah. Adds Pierre, “With our background in biomolecular engineering, we’ve worked with protein stability and protein development. Tattoos are just interactions between the skin (the protein in this case) and the ink, so that’s why this problem was of interest to us,” he says.
The formula for the ink has been in development for six and a half years. “We started in 2014 and have tried and tested over 50 formulations,” says Shah. The two basic components are the Ephemeral ink polymers and the dyes. While the exact composition is proprietary (as are other conventional tattoo ink formulas), the duo assures us that the polymers have been used in medical devices and drugs for years, and are well d
TextOlivia King
With the look and feel of a traditional tattoo, the revolutionary ink disappears after a year – taking away the permanence (and regret) and allowing more space for experimentation
Growing up in a Persian Jewish household on Long Island, tattoos were out of the question for Josh Sakhai. As a freshman at New York University, he saw friends adorn themselves with ink – some with success, some with regret. And so Sakhai began to mull: What if tattoos didn’t have to last forever?
Six years later, he has an answer. They don’t. Along with CEO Jeff Liu and chemical engineers, Brennal Pierre and Vandan Shah, the team are set to launch Ephemeral – the first-ever made-to-fade tattoo brand. It looks like a permanent tattoo. It’s applied like a permanent tattoo (sorry, it still hurts) but then it disappears in about a year.