The Whitepaper
InkFlow : Making tattoo and permanent make-up data available to all
Abstract : A central repository of information regarding tattoo and PMU inks and products has become a necessity in the body art and cosmetic make-up industry. A technological system is required, one whereby all this information can be accumulated, catalogued, and made easily available to the end users of tattoo and cosmetic inks for their own knowledge and that of their customers. An online portal can provide such a system, with data collected and made available via a robust, secure web application. As long as data integrity remains intact this provides a solution allowing those that use tattoo and cosmetic make-up inks and products, a reliable source of information from which to base their preferred selection of inks, that conform to the legislation they are regulated under. Data would be initially maintained by the community with the option for manufacturers of the products to manage their own data and provide the optimal data integrity. A portal that provides such information is also one where news on the latest regulations and legislation can be reported and discussed in an open manner as a community.
Introduction
The tattoo and permanent make-up industry has been under heavy scrutiny in the past few years. New regulations have brought the production, labelling and restrictions on tattoo tattoo and PMU inks under the same requirements as the cosmetic industry. This has required reformulation of certain inks to meet the requirements. The stricter requirements have emanated from the EU but we can be sure that the UK, US, Canada, Australia and other parts of Asia and the world will surely follow with regulation of their own.
As practitioners there will be requirements to ensure we are only using inks and products that meet regulations in our particular geographical location. We will also need to be capable of accessing information on the inks we use, as well as relevant documents for the inks such as Safety Data Sheets and CTL certificates. Clients may also need to be given access to this information prior to a procedure. Furthermore it’s likely we will have to document which inks we use, including supplier, batch numbers and dates and hold this information for a given amount of time.
The problem the community faces is the sourcing of information from different locations, be it manufacturers, suppliers or government agencies. The reliability of the data is also at question when sourcing this information from different locations unless of course it is directly from the manufacturer. We may use a number of suppliers and manufacturers to source our products, it becomes a difficult task visiting all of them periodically to ensure you have the correct information. In addition to this, the format of the data is not always presented consistently i.e. different terminologies or document types or even compressed archives of entire documents that make it difficult to source only the information relevant to us.
The Community
Inkflow Portal is designed to make things easier for practitioners.
Initially data collection will require help from the community as we are an extremely small team. This will range from alerting us of new recalls we haven’t picked up on, requesting a new ink or ink brand be added, linking us to some news item to report on, or even bug reporting or letting us know of a broken web link on the portal. We are all reliant on the information being as accurate as possible so help from the community or volunteers to help in the development of the portal is a big part of it.
We’ll also be looking to the community for ideas and suggestions for new features in the system, what can be done to make things easier to access, thoughts on the UI/UX of the system.
We don’t often talk about representation, there are many organisations that have surfaced to represent tattooing or cosmetic make-up, mostly self appointed. Building a system that represents the community and where everyone has the opportunity for putting forward ideas or opening discussions is a large part of where we’d like the system to go. Our first step is to provide reliable data.
Manufacturers
As manufacturers see the benefit of the portal we aim to have them manage their own data via an administrative system, Inkflow Manager. This is a secure backend system that powers the information on the Inkflow Portal. Manufacturers are the direct source to their ink information so it makes sense to get them involved. The system will allow them to add their inks and products, provide documents and links to product information (be it at a brand or individual ink level), add a recall against one of their inks, and possibly add batch codes and news items.
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If a manufacturer chooses to use the system they also benefit from having the data in a central repository. It’s not only accessible to practitioners, but also to governing bodies, their distributors and suppliers. In this way they can all link directly to this information from their CMS or website without the need for duplication. (the system provides an api to access ink and product information).
Suppliers
Suppliers benefit from the Portal by not having to host the data themselves and keep track of products they stock and the necessity to ensure they have the latest information from various manufacturers. If the products they stock are present on the Inkflow Portal and managed by the manufacturer, they can trust this information and link directly to it from their sites with minimal effort.
Governing bodies
We have numerous governing bodies around the globe, all with different requirements from the tattoo and cosmetic industry. One thing that is apparent is that they don’t have a direct link to the industries they regulate. This may be because our industry doesn’t provide the representation or that we aren’t very good at keeping up to date with this information.
Inkflow Manager allows for roles that are only capable of adding news. If we can bring these governing bodies on board, they will have the ability to add news to the site and link to proposals or new legislations so that more practitioners are aware of issues as soon as they are announced and have more time to act appropriately.
Funding
Currently the system is self funded. We have set up a Ltd company to keep the expenses we incur separate to our jobs which are self employed (tattooers and software developer).
There is no doubt that the system will need funding, cloud server costs providing storage, security, databases, hosting and other features come at a cost. As the system is used more we will have to scale certain resources which will no doubt cost even more, we may even need to take on more people to maintain it.
We will look to advertising as a source of revenue to support and further develop the system, ensuring that all ads are relevant and not too intrusive when using the system.
The idea is to add additional features to the Inkflow Manager that will provide the manufacturer and suppliers with some benefit, these features will require a subscription. This way we can fund further development and server costs.
Donations will also be welcome.
Initially our main goal is to add data to the system and ensure it’s reliable, scalable and accessible to all that require the information.
Conclusion
The industry needs a central source of information, one that is not controlled by an individual brand or supplier that may limit the information available. It’s important that those that help build the system are also reliant on it being the best it can be, people that need the system to work.
The vision we have of the system is a good starting point. As it develops we hope to make it a place for open discussion on our industry and provide more features to those that use it.
This was a brief overview of what the portal hopes to solve and achieve. We will release a roadmap of where we are headed in the future, which we hope will make the tattoo and PMU community more resilient to legislation and regulations, bring us closer together by open discussions as well as helping increase the knowledge of products we use.
