Solid Ink - Solid Ink

Is Solid Ink a good tattoo ink?

Three things come back again and again in forum reviews of Solid Ink: it goes in smooth, it heals bright, and it does not harden in the cup. Eikon's own 2023 spotlight says the same. Solid publishes no UV-stability figure.

Some artists find Solid heavier-bodied than what they are used to, and a few report it drying in the caps over a long session. Both accounts come from working artists, and Solid publishes no viscosity figure that would settle it.

Solid does say why it behaves as it does: it describes most of its pigments as organic powders rather than pre-dispersed, carried in glycerin and water. Mix thoroughly before you start, which is Solid's own care guidance, so pigment and carrier are even. For thinning, Solid makes its own Mixing Solution, The Mixer.

The signature series, decoded

The signature series are where Solid goes deeper than a colour range, and each one is built around the work a particular artist does.

The 8-Colour Ami James Fundamentals is the way into traditional Japanese: red, blue, green, orange, yellow, brown, purple and white, English names, mixed ready to use. James built it as a starting palette: *"The fundamental collection is based on the simple approach to traditional Japanese tattoos. Each and every one of these colors has been mixed to give u nothing but the smoothest and easiest colors to put in the skin."*

The 12-Colour Horitomo Set is the deeper version of that same territory. Horitomo — Kazuaki Kitamura — trained under Horiyoshi III in Yokohama and took the name in 2001; he is a tebori specialist working out of State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose.

Seven of the twelve carry names Solid glosses in Japanese: Bengara, an iron-oxide reddish-brown; Shu, vermilion; Gunjo, ultramarine; Sakura, cherry-blossom pink; Kikyo, the purple of Chinese bellflower; Moegi, light green; Shinbashi, light blue.

Chris Garver and Victor Chil each carry a colour range of their own. Garver's runs Blood Orange, Peony Pink, Ghost Face Grey, Matcha and Mikiri Blues; Chil's runs Phantom Blue, Toxic Green, Butano and Waterfall, plus three skin tones in Light, Medium and Dark.

Max Rodriguez brings a tropical range out of Costa Rica: Cadejo, Cahuita, Jaguar, Papaya, Tico Red, sold here as singles. Eikon's own interview with him quotes the palette he built them for, *"a little of our cheerful colours that set us apart as Latinos."* Billy DeCola's SMP Pigments go the other way, tuned for scalp micropigmentation rather than body work, and Solid scopes that line to scalp only.

Old Pigments is the heritage line, in opaque frosted bottles, and it leaves out raw brown, orange, magenta and violet bases. Those colours get mixed up from primaries, the way they were before the bases existed.

The general colour line is sold by how much of the palette you want at once. The 25-Colour Fundamental Set is a working core; the 50-Colour Mega Ultra Deluxe Set is the same thinking at twice the colours. Neither substitutes for a signature set: fifty general colours will not give you Horitomo's palette.

Fill or line: choosing between the blacks

Black Label splits the job in two, and Solid treats the split as the design rather than a compromise.

Heavy Black is the fill black, three times as concentrated as the Lining Black in Solid's own terms. It is built for blackout and deep packing, where fewer passes is the point.

Lining Black is the lining and tribal black, without the density that makes a fill black hard to move. The two are not interchangeable, and both are made in larger formats than the colours are; check the product page for what is available.

Every packing and lining black we carry sits together in black tattoo ink.

The washes split the same way, by tradition. The 4-Colour Grey Wash Set (Extra Light, Light, Medium, Dark) is Western black-and-grey, pre-mixed stages for realism and portrait work. The 4-Colour Sumi Set is the Japanese counterpart, named for sumi-e calligraphy ink; a different character, not a different strength.

A palette quirk that comes up repeatedly in forum threads: the standard Red runs orange-toned, and the artists posting there run Super Red instead.

Run by the tattooer who made it

Federico Ferroni founded Solid and still owns and runs it from Miami, where he has tattooed his whole career. His own account of why: *"I became obsessed with ink. Realizing that creating my color system, knowing exactly what I put in it, was going to lead me to create the best ink possible."*

Solid manufactures its full line from that one facility under Color Art, Inc., founder-owned and founder-run.

That preoccupation shows up as disclosure. Solid names its carrier on the brand's own info page: vegetable glycerin, distilled water, and witch hazel. The same page states the formula contains no carcinogenic, reprotoxic or mutagenic substances, declares it 100% vegan with no animal testing or animal products, and declares it gluten-free.

Solid positions its pigments as non-toxic and non-hazardous under the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1200. Most colours have been tested at the CTL lab in Bielefeld, Germany, against the European tattoo-colour framework that preceded REACH, the Council of Europe's ResAP(2008)1. *"Most colours"* is Solid's own qualifier, not ours.

It is real third-party testing from an EU lab. It is not a test against the REACH rules that came later.

Eikon carries Solid because it comes from a Health-Canada-notified brand, and we confirm that status before we bring in any ink. Notifying Health Canada is the step that makes an ink lawful to sell here; there is no government test an ink passes first.

Health Canada sets the impurity and microbial benchmarks (lead at or under 10 ppm, arsenic and cadmium 3, mercury 1, antimony 5, alongside the ISO 17516 microbial limits) and enforces them after an ink is on the market. Its 2022–23 verification sweep tested inks against those limits and pulled three products from sale. Meeting them is the manufacturer's responsibility.

Solid publishes no sterilisation method and makes no claim on that front, relying on its OSHA position instead.

Two product recalls are on the public record: Solid Orange in 2018 for microbial contamination, and a single lot of Diablo in 2019.

For your clients

Most brands leave you describing a category. Solid's disclosure lets you name the carrier outright — glycerin, distilled water, witch hazel, no preservatives — which is a different conversation to have with a client who asks.

The standard caution holds anyway. Vegan does not mean allergen-free, any pigment from any maker can provoke a reaction, and a 24-hour patch test before a large piece is still right for a client who reacts to things.

On Old Pigments: two of the line's colours use phthalocyanine blue, PB15, and phthalocyanine green, PG7. Both are restricted for tattooing in the European Union under REACH Annex XVII entry 75, which has applied since January 2022 and caught these two pigments at the end of their transition in January 2023.

Canada runs no equivalent restriction, so the line is sold here. That is narrower than it sounds: Health Canada's Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist does name banned colourants, and it is updated as the science moves.

If a client asks about EU compliance, the honest answer is that Old Pigments is not EU-legal by design. Solid frames that as the heritage choice it is.

Worth knowing which product that is, because it is on this page: Green 7 is the PG7 colour, and it is one of two Old Pigments we currently carry.

Solid does not market its standard line for permanent makeup or facial cosmetic work, and it scopes the SMP line to scalp micropigmentation. A client asking about PMU should be pointed to a dedicated cosmetic-pigment line.

Ordering Solid from Eikon

Every Solid bottle goes out individually sealed in its own bag, so a leak in transit costs one bottle instead of the order, and from November through March ink ships with free heat packs so nothing freezes on the way. Safety data sheets live on Solid's own site, where they stay current.

Solid ships from our shop in Kingston, Ontario. Order by 1 pm EST Monday to Friday and it leaves the same day, ground is free over $150, and UPS reaches Ontario and southern Quebec the next business day.

Like all tattoo ink at Eikon, Solid is sold to verified professionals through a Pro Account.

Solid is where NeoTrad and Japanese-traditional work lands, and the signature series are why. If that is the work you book, the rest of the range built for it is in traditional and neo-traditional artists' favourites. If the Sumi set is what brought you here, the wash systems it sits beside are in black and grey specialists.

Every ink we stock, brand by brand, is in tattoo ink.