When it comes to tattoos, two things often are true: They hurt like hell, and they’re on your body forever.
But what if they’re not? For Chicagoans wanting to try a tattoo that should fade in about three years, one Hermosa Park studio offers that choice.
“It gives them the experience of what it’s like to get a tattoo. The only thing that’s different is it fades,” says Samantha Martinez, who goes by Moochie as a tattoo artist. She is Chicago’s only artist offering Ephemeral ink, a patented technology developed by chemical engineers that fades from the skin.
The company says its ink should fade within three years depending on the design and placement — after previously telling customers they’d fade within nine to 15 months. Some early customers said their tattoos didn’t disappear within 15 months, and some say their tattoos haven’t fully faded in three years.
Ephemeral says it’s working on that and improving its ink technology and that it will give refunds to customers whose tattoos aren’t gone within three years.
For tattoo rookies, it’s a great introductory experience into the world of body art, says Martinez, who has been applying tattoos for 16 years. But she also sees tattoo veterans who’d rather check design and placement before returning to have an image inked permanently on their skin.
Martinez, who had tattooed at an Ephemeral-branded shop in Chicago before its closure last fall, now carries the ink at her recently opened Painted Lady tattoo shop in Hermosa Park.
“I didn’t even believe it at first,” she says about the fading ink. “They explained how it worked, how it’s not permanent, for people who didn’t want to make the commitment, I thought it was a genius idea because I don’t know how many cover-ups I do.”
Bianca Sostre, a Humboldt Park resident who works as a server and bartender at Paisans Pizzeria, got two Ephemeral tattoos last year and they’ve both faded considerably, though the lighter design faded faster. She had some reservations about the specific design and its placement. She said she’ll be getting one of the tattoos done permanently, an outline of a woman’s face on her forearm. As for the other design, a lotus flower on her calf, she wants to amend the drawing.
“I probably would have eventually wanted to get it covered up, and at least like this I don’t have to,” she says.
The idea for the made-to-fade ink originally came from a group of friends who, as immigrants or children of immigrants, felt left out of the traditional tattoo space. At the time, tattooing felt overwhelmingly homogenous, serving mostly white people and excluding people of color and immigrants, says Ephemeral CEO Jeff Liu. Because some cultures frown upon permanent body art, the friends conjured the idea of fading ink to make the industry more inclusive.
The ink took six and a half years to develop, and Ephemeral brought it to market in 2021. It’s composed of medical-grade polymers similar to the ones that make up sutures that dissolve after getting stitches, Liu says.
Now, the goal is to provide “limitless self-expression” for people whose cultures or religions discourage permanent tattoos, those who want to try a tattoo before committing to permanence, and anyone else who wants to experiment. Of the company’s customers, 70% have never had a tattoo, Liu says.
“It’s just a fun way to get into it,” he says. “You can commit without giving up a bunch of real estate.”
The company operated brick-and-mortar storefronts in several cities for a few years, including one briefly in the West Loop. But all stores closed in 2023 as the company instead focused on selling the ink to artists around the world.
The new model isn’t as simple as buying ink and loading it into the tattoo gun, Liu says. The company’s “artist marketplace” is a way for the ink provider to team up with artists who fit the company’s goals, like expanding access to tattooing and increasing creativity with their designs.
“This is an industry that can be a little gatekeep-y,” Liu says. “We are confident in being a little different than the rest of the community. It is its own art form, so we want artists who can push the boundaries on that.”
Looking ahead, company representatives hope to introduce a red ink to join the classic black. They also hope to join the medical space and provide tattoos for patients who need markers on their skin throughout the medical process. For example, cancer patients undergoing radiation get tattooed with dots, circles or X’s to guide doctors throughout the process. Ephemeral is now finishing a clinical trial with Detroit-based Henry Ford Hospital, and Liu expects other hospitals to be use the ink later this year.
Meanwhile Martinez says her clients often try out tattoos with the Ephemeral ink then return to get the same design, sometimes moving its placement or making small changes.
“Some people have actually come back to get it permanently done, which I think is amazing, because I don’t know how many tattoos I have that I wish I could have changed the placement of,” she says.
