Video guide from Anna Taranko
Anna Taranko shows how to use Diluent and what mistakes should be avoided:
Why Do You Need a Diluent?
The primary purpose of a diluent is to reduce the concentration of the pigment. Here’s when you might use it:
- 1. Adjusting Shade Intensity: You agree on a shade with your client. If they find it too intense, add a couple of drops and re-check the shade.
- 2. Creating Gradients: You understand gradients and skillfully work with multiple colors to create accents and achieve a stunning effect. Some colors in different caps are diluted for lighter shading in brows/lips/eyelids or softer hair strokes.
When You Don’t Need a Diluent
- 1. Reviving Dried Ink: Diluent is not for reviving dried ink. Ink should not dry out in the cap or the closed bottle.
- 2. Making Ink More Liquid: Thick ink cannot be made less thick just by adding a diluent. It would require a substantial amount of diluent, resulting in 0% color retention after healing and a pissed off client.
- 3. Preventing Brown Shades from Graying Over Time: Adding diluent will not prevent brown shades from graying. The issue lies with the ink itself, particularly with the improper handling of carbon black by the manufacturer.
- 4. Adding Supplements: Adding vitamins, mandrake root extract, or other “enhancers” (which are not actually present in the diluent) is not the purpose of a diluent.
What Is a Diluent Anyway?
We've written about diluents here and in our Instagram back in 2019. Variations of our texts can be found in the blogs of at least five competitors.
You could say that a diluent is the base on which a particular ink is created. But it’s more accurate to describe it as the primary components mixed with water. The entire base composition is not mandatory for the simple task of diluting ink.
What Should You Not Use to Dilute Ink?
It's important to understand that all inks are different, with different bases. The concentrations of ingredients vary, and adding foreign liquids unpredictably changes the properties of the suspension.
Assembling colorful pigments into a specific shade and binding them with a base is challenging, but destroying these bonds can be done in a minute. By adding plain water, saline solution, or chlorhexidine (a method still popular among tattoo artists for making gray washes from black ink), you disrupt the balance of components in the ink. This results in:
- Uncontrolled Separation: The ink components separate unpredictably.
- Reduced Surface Tension: The ink sticks poorly to the needle, droplets become larger, the cartridge spits ink into the skin, less pigment is deposited, and the result is the same: 0% retention after healing and a pissed off client.
For the best results, use BROVI's branded diluent. We didn’t create it just for fun.
We also show you how to work with our diluent and in what quantities to add it:
How the Diluent works (a visual example with BROVI pigments)
