Lighter tones of color will not show on you for very long.
You always have to remember that your natural skin tones will over power the pigment.

I think your out of luck. The problem is (to put it simply) the ink is in the middle of all your layers of skin. When you first get a tattoo, the ink is more visible on the surface of the skin (which is also why is some pictures color looks good AT FIRST) … As that skin peels, and then new (dark) skin heals over the top of the tattoo, even though all the ink is still there, there is a new layer of skin over the top of it creating the appearance of fading. So… no matter how many times you put the ink in there, your still going to have a few layers of new skin over the top, hence creating the darker, faded look. Hope this helps.

This would work fine.

Thats really not how it works. I can say with nearly one hundred percent certainty you will be unhappy if you use whites, yellows, oranges, or most colors for that matter. Its not like painting, or any other medium. Your skin is dark. that dark skin will heal over ANY color you put in, hence making that color dull or nearly non existent depending on skin tone. Obviously I don’t know your exact skin tone say i can’t say for sure which colors MIGHT work. Its like coloring a picture in color and then laying a tinted piece of glass over it. Any color underneath the dark skin will be affected. Whites, pastels, yellows, any light color will be affected even greater and be drowned out by your skin tone. I hope this helps, and i know one would think that lighter coors would work better on a darker back drop but thats truly not the case. The fairer the skin the brighter the colors will show through the skin, the darker the skin tone, the less the colors will show through. Hope this helps!

Actually, Wicked Ink, with all due, that is how it works sometimes. I’ve done plenty of dark skin in my 15 + years and can say with certainty that, provided that her skin is the type to discolor white or pastels rather than reject them (which many do!), she CAN use the end result to her advantage. As you confirmed, it all comes down to her skin tone. There’s a rule of thumb in the art world – tattooing included — that there is no “bad” result.. just something different than expected. Light colors never work as you would expect them to unless you’re used to using their discoloration. After all, it’s still color. Think of it as a strangely colored color pencil – You CAN figure out how to make it look good, right? With ink, as with paint, it’s all in how you put the final result to use. Ultimately, the key would be for her to do a small patch test. BTW – In my first post I mistakenly wrote that white ink would get lighter but meant to write “darker”. My bad!

Oh no…sorry – Didn’t mean to leave that impression. You’re right- it’s rare to see any chocolate or dark caramel skin that you can just lay one coat of white into and expect to get a brighter top-coat out of. However, if -any- light color will discolor in her skin while still leaving a lighter color, she can put it to good use. Anyways, thanks for the chat, and I think we may be bordering on the forbidden (how-to) discussion with this, so I shall end it here. Have a great holiday season, Wicked. 🙂

I have done alot of tatts on light and dark skin. A trick I was taught that can show how colors react to the darker pigment was to take a peice of brown construction paper. Take regular colored pencils and try to color in a design. In the spectrum it has an effect of mixing colors. Example yellow and blue= green etc. Now I have not had to much luck with really light colors due to fading within a short time of getting it. Mainly whites and bright yellows seem to fade out the quickest. I know this sounds really simple and weird but the trick with construction paper works fairly well. The same as using a brown paper bag to draw designs on. It just makes a simple representation of the skin tone once the design is tattooed onto the skin.