Several tattoo shops in Greater Sudbury said they wouldn't even contemplate injecting ink into the whites of someone's eyes.
It's called scleral tattooing — or eyeball tattooing — and local tattoo artists are not qualified to perform them, said two tattoo shop representatives.
Shanen Restoule is the principal body piercer at Canadian Red Dragon Tattoo Studio in Greater Sudbury. She said she been piercing for 22 years, but she wouldn't even pretend to try and understand eyeball tattooing.
“And, just because a tattoo artist can tattoo the skin, it doesn't mean they can or should be able to to an eyeball tattoo,” she said. “It's still fairly new, and it does take a skilled hand. I'm not for it or against it, but I personally wouldn't do it.”
As for why people would want to get their eyeball tattooed, Restoule said people keep trying to come up with ways to go beyond the norm.
“We've come a long way in the industry, and people are always trying to push the limits and see how far they can go,” she said, pointing out people are getting body manipulation done, too, like elf ears and tongue splitting. “All these different things people are coming up with is just another step in that direction.”
Eyeball tattooing and implanting eye jewelry will soon be banned in Ontario after health professionals urged action to prevent the dangerous procedures. The provincial government has amended a health-care bill before the legislature — Bill 160 — to include barring eyeball tattooing and the implantation of eye jewelry under the conjunctiva.
Medical professionals recently asked a legislative committee to ban the practices as they continue to increase in popularity, saying it's difficult to engage in the procedures safely.
The idea of eyeball tattoos made headlines in September when a 24-year-old alternative model from Ottawa said she allowed someone to dye her right eye purple and then developed major complications.
Cory Reist, owner of Painful Addiction Tattoo Studio, advises people thinking about getting their eyeballs tattooed not to do it until more studies are done.
“It looks pretty dangerous, in my opinion,” Reist said. “I wouldn't even come close to touching that.
“To each their own, but I don't know why anyone would want to do that, especially with the dangers involved.”
Both Restoule and Reist said they don't know of any tattoo artist around Greater Sudbury capable or skilled enough to perform an eye tattoo.
“No recognized artist I know of would even come close to touching something like that,” Reist said. “If a tattoo artist does an eyeball tattoo without the knowledge or skill, they're just asking for trouble.”
While Restoule said the issue of eyeball tattoos brings back the need for more regulations overall in the tattoo industry.
