• Question: Some people say that you can get ink poisoning from writing on your skin, is this true?

    Asked by livvilivvilivliv to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 26 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      It doesn’t *sound* true – after all, we give very small children pens to use, and that wouldn’t be very safe if they could poison themselves!

      However these things are often based on some extreme case or very old instance, so I did a bit of research. It turns out that ink poisoning is a thing, but you definitely can’t get it through absorption through the skin. In fact, you’d need to drink 30ml of ink before you started to make yourself ill – I think you’d probably notice and stop before then. Ink isn’t very tasty!

      So feel free to draw on yourself to your heart’s content. My wife and I used to have lectured together and I would frequently get drawn on whenever I made fun of her!

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      I think it’s fine if you don’t do it too much (I remember as a child once I drew on myself a lot and it was a pain having my parents not let me go out and play but have to get it all wahsed off) because it’s not so easy for skin to absorb things but I wouldn’t quote me on that.

    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      I had a look around too and came up with the same answer Michael did, (which is reassuring given how much I write on my hand as a reminder to myself!)

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