When I first started applying tats, I was always disappointed with the way yellow, orange and brown looked on the customer’s skin. In fact when someone asked for a tat and requested yellow, orange or brown, I would warn them that because of their skin color those colors would not show up very well.

I was at a show with my daughter and we were both spraying tats but she was much more experienced at applying tats than I. When I was giving my spiel about yellow not showing up to my customer, my daughter interrupted me. She told me to first spray down a thin layer of white before I spray the yellow, orange or brown,. I did what she suggested and the result was beautiful. That tat really “popped”. The customer was very happy and so was I.

The same is true for spraying any color tat on people with very dark skin. A thin layer of white under any color, even black will make the tat stand out.

A technique that creates a very interesting look on dark skin is to first spray a thin layer of white, then move the stencil slightly and spray the design in the colors requested by the customer. When you remove the stencil there will be a thin line of white on the edge of the design.

One of our tatist did this on a black woman at the New Yourk Beauty Show. The customer chose stencil #13, the eyes. She was so pleased with the end result, she had her friend take a picture. She decided she wanted to get a permanent tattoo just like the one we had applied for her.

The only words or caution are to be sure you apply a thin layer of white. Just one or two quick sweeps of white over the area with the airbrush gun are all you need. If you are goint to move the stencil for that white edge then you need to make sure the white is dry before you move the stencil. I just blow air only from the airbrush gun over the white to expedite the drying.

Have some fun experimenting. You will be surprised at how beautiful some of your experiments will turn out. It they don’t turn out, they can be easily removed.