This photo was sent to me by a customer recently. It was his 3-year old son in 1983 wearing a cobra Japanese Paper Tattoo on each arm. It reminded me of the excitement when waterslide tattoos were first introduced in America.

Don Ling, a Hollywood makeup artist, was working on a film in Japan when he discovered them in the early 80's. Don brought a bunch of them home with him and set up a booth at a festival in California. It was a huge success, and after a few more festivals, Don moved back to his hometown in Minnesota and began distributing his "Removable Tattoo Parlors" nationwide. I became one of his dealers in 1988. Don Ling was the only game in town for a number of years.

I had good success with the events I worked, but due to my background in retail I decided to try selling temporary tattoos to end users by mail order. It worked, and I was soon shipping temporary tattoos all over the country and mailing out color catalogs. I became one of Don Ling's best customer's and negotiated a price that allowed me to supply dealers of my own. For several years my dealer sales exceeded my retail sales.

Everyone was trying to figure out how the Japanese Paper Tattoos were made. Finally, someone discovered they could be printed much the way waterslide decals were. After considerable trial and error, some acceptable products were developed, but nobody has ever been able to duplicate the quality and longevity of Japanese Paper Tattoos.

Since it cost less to produce temporary tattoos on printing presses, the early 90's began to see a flood of temporary tattoos in stores and vending machines. Unfortunately, the quality was not as good as Japanese Paper Tattoos, but the price was lower. It's nice that you can still get a quality product...if you're willing to pay a little more for it.

Labels: fake tattoo, funtooguy, funtoos, paper tattoos, tattoo event, temporary tattoos, waterslide tattoos

I'm continuing my search for new temporary tattoos to add to my catalog. This evaluation includes 3 temporary tattoos from different sources. They all looked pretty good on day 2 and I was especially interested in seeing how the cherries would hold up. The skull in the middle was one of the premium quality Japanese Paper Tattoos I import from Japan. I included it as a reference. The eagle and anchor was from the third source. Click on any of the images for a larger view.

By the third day, The cherries were really breaking down, but the other two were still looking good.

By the fifth day, the cherries were completely gone with just a hint that there was ever anything there. The other two still looked good, but the eagle and anchor was beginning to show signs of breaking down. The skull, of course, still looked good.

This is a good example of how much the quality can vary from one manufacturer to another. During the 23 years I've been marketing temporary tattoos I've seen a wide range of quality in the temporary tattoos flooding the market today. Unlike paper tattoos, they are manufactured on printing presses using special inks and an adhesive to bond it to the skin. The tattoos are printed on a decal stock paper that releases the tattoo image when dampened. By definition, what we refer to as temporary tattoos should actually be called "waterslide tattoos" since they are actually a specialized version of waterslide decals. Traditional temporary tattoos printed on presses (as most are these days) will normally look good for 3 to 5 days.

Although Japanese Paper Tattoos are also waterslide tattoos, they are produced with a more complex process that is similar to silk screening. Due to this more expensive process, they look more realistic and normally last from one week to two weeks of longer.

I should clarify the term "normally" as it applies to how a long a temporary tattoo should last. In addition the the quality of the tattoo, there are other factors that influence how long a waterslide temporary tattoo might look good. Rubbing from clothing or other objects will shorten the life since it is on the surface of the skin. There's a good discussion and video you can view here.

Labels: fake tattoo, fake tattoos, funtooguy, funtoos, paper tattoos, temporary tattoos