I started getting tattooed a long time ago. Not really thinking about much to do with the process i got my first, and then another and another. Some six or so years later i stumbled into a job a shop here in salt lake called Apparition Ink. I became shop manager. One of my duties as shop manager was to do the ordering for the artists. Looking through the catalogues i saw something that up until that moment never even entered my mind to look for "vegan ink". I'm covered in tattoos and never once did i stop and think about what tattoo ink was made of. So my search began to find out what inks were vegan and which were not because the thought of using non vegan tattoo ink was horrifying to me. I started calling companies and asking them if their glycerin was animal or plant based. I started looking at websites for inks and tattoo ink forums. If i couldn't get a hold of a company I called a distributor for that company and had them find out for me. It was really weird some companies were so straight forward "yes they are vegan, the glycerin is plant based" or "no, sorry our ink is not" so companies never returned my phone call or email, some told me they wouldn't tell me, some gave "vague answers"... from all of that, the following information is what i compiled.

Stable and Classic brands come right out on their websites and even right on the bottle that they are vegan. These are the two brands i use on a daily basis. Intenze, Fantasia, Dermaglo, Eternal, Skin Candy, StarBrite, Waverly, Unique, Millennium, Good Color Brand all said their glycerin was plant based. Black ink is where you are going to most commonly find non vegan inks. The companies that are not vegan use bone char to make their black inks. "One" brand, Dynamic, Pelican, Talens, Kuro Sumi Brands are not vegan Silverback color system is a brand of premixed black and grey inks which when ask by (at my request) Rebecca (an Eikon Tattoo Supply Employee) if their inks were vegan, they gave her a "vague answer". It's safe to say their ink is in fact not vegan and they didn't want to say one way or another so it wouldn't affect their sale. While researching which inks were vegan or not i came across the fact that industry wide used "green soap" is not vegan as well. It contains glycerin that is animal derived. A great substitute and the one i use is Dr Bronner's liquid soaps. Tea Tree oil actually promotes healing in minor cuts and abrasions. 

A little info on aftercare. Bacitracin is always a good choice. It's what i recommend all my clients to use. The carrier used is either petroleum jelly or paraffin. It’s as bare bones as you can get. I researched the 2 biggest "tattoo aftercare" companies. H2Ocean is vegan, the glycerin used in their products is plant based. Tattoo Goo on the other hand uses bee's wax. Some artist recommend A+D ointment, i information i found suggests this is almost never vegan. They frequently use cod liver oil as the source of the Vitamins A and D and contain lanolin. As far as the lotion you should use, anything that says "Vegan" and doesn't have alcohol in it. I personally used the Whole Foods brand cause it's usually cheap and says "no animal ingredients or testing" on the bottle; makes it easy. 

So, there you have it, all the companies i was able to get information on their ingredients. Hope this proves helpful to someone, anyone. haha. A great source for finding a Vegan tattoo artist is Vegantattoos.com 

Hope this finds you all extremely well.

-Clinton

You can check out Clinton's work at Apparition Ink in Salt Lake City, Utah www.apparitionink.com