Empire Inks - Empire Inks

What Makes Empire Inks a Wash Specialist?

"Fine Art First" isn't just Empire's tagline; it's the architecture of the whole line. Colt Brown, a black-and-grey portrait artist in Neenah, Wisconsin, founded Empire Inks in 2012 because a pre-mixed wash system that held its value step to step didn't exist. Brown still tattoos at his own Empire Inks Studio in Appleton, Wisconsin, and that working-artist origin shows in every design decision. Every product still flows from that premise: separate formulation, pre-measured pigment load, batch-to-batch consistency. For the artist whose work lives on a reliable grey scale, that reproducibility is the product, the value step you used on the last portrait matches the one you reach for today.

That focus is why Empire anchors the greyscale side of Eikon's shelf the way Eternal anchors colour. It's a tattoo ink built by one B&G artist for B&G artists: traditional oil-paint naming (Vine, Mars, Ivory, Classic, Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson), a limited fine-art palette, and free studio tools like a value scale and mixing chart. The register is the painter's studio, not the chemistry lab, and the catalogue reflects it.

Brown is careful not to pitch pre-mixed as the only way to work: "It's not a matter of which is better in tattooing, rather which is better for each individual artist." The wash systems are for artists whose technique calls for deliberate, repeatable consistency, not a conversion from the drop method.

Eikon stocks all three four-stage wash sets and all twelve individual wash stages in 2 oz and 4 oz.

How the Three Wash Systems Work

The Graywash Series is Empire's founding line, black pigment in a clear carrier, no white. It heals transparent and cool; Empire's own description is "stark contrast between warm skin tones and cooler bluish greys," independently echoed by Magnum Tattoo Supplies (UK): "the rich, bluish greys of the inks creating a sharp contrast against warm skin tones." That cool-blue heal is the Graywash signature, what the Graywash Series does, not a blanket claim about every Empire ink.

The Whitewash Series adds a measured amount of white to the graywash formula at each stage: it goes in like a graywash and heals like a soft, opaque grey. Where graywash builds transparent shadows, whitewash builds deliberate values, and Empire designs them to be used together: "Whitewash is used for value and graywash is used for transparent shadows." That pairing is the canonical Empire workflow, two tools that don't duplicate each other. Empire's own guidance for laying whitewash is a slow, deliberate hand with even skin stretch and the needle gliding at a consistent depth, "as if it was on ice", which is how the value builds clean and even rather than patchy.

The Blackwash Series is the newest line: higher pigment load, zero white, "packed with serious pigment," in Empire's words. Where graywash and whitewash cover the lighter half of the tonal range in graduated transparency, Blackwash works the dark end, giving progressive depth for dark realism, dark illustration, and blackwork shading rather than flattening to a single solid black.

All three share the same logic: four separately formulated stages, Xtra Light, Light, Medium, Dark, pre-mixed for reproducibility, not diluted from one base in the cap. (There's no "Extra Dark" stage, whatever some retailer listings say — four per system.) Together they cover the full range of black and grey wash work, from the faintest transparent value to a dense, controlled dark.

Eikon stocks the four-stage sets and every individual stage of all three systems in 2 oz and 4 oz.

The Single Blacks, White, and Mixing Mediums

Empire names its single blacks after traditional painters' pigment families, and each maps to a genuinely different chromophore and working character, not one black at three dilutions. Empire describes Classic Black as cool and all-purpose, a dependable general black; Vine Black as warm and slightly transparent, suited to fast lining and whip shading and dilutable in the cap to a working greywash; Mars Black as opaque and slightly warm, an iron-oxide-family black built for large-area solid packing with mags; and Ivory Black as its darkest single black, a vegan formulation named for the colour and behaviour of historical bone-char ivory black, not its source. These are Empire's own descriptors (the brand publishes no numeric viscosity or particle data), so read them as Empire's characterisation rather than a measured spec.

Titanium White is Empire's opaque TiO₂ white, for highlights, packing solid white, modifying colour, and the white-pigment source behind the Whitewash system. Empire describes it as carrying more pigment than a water-diluted white, which is what lets it hold as a true highlight rather than greying out, its own characterisation, like its black descriptors, rather than a published figure.

The four Mixing Mediums are a genuine Empire distinctive: most brands don't sell the components of their own carrier, and Empire does. Glaze is, in Empire's words, "the same medium we use to cut our Graywash Series", the clear carrier on its own. Propylene Glycol thins; Glycerin Empire frames as a thickening medium; Witch Hazel thins without the redness alcohol can cause (it's alcohol-free). They're plain working tools for building your own dilutions from the same components Empire uses, no substitution required.

Eikon stocks all four single blacks, Titanium White, and all four Mixing Mediums (Glaze, Glycerin, Propylene Glycol, Witch Hazel) in 2 oz and 4 oz.

Are Empire Inks Vegan and Health Canada Compliant?

Yes. Empire Inks is 100% vegan, no animal-derived ingredients, confirmed across the suppliers who carry it. Even Ivory Black, named for the historical bone-char pigment, is a vegan formulation; the name references the colour and behaviour, not the source. It's a brand-asserted vegan status rather than a third-party certification, which is standard across professional tattoo ink.

On the Canadian side, Eikon carries Empire because it's from a Health-Canada-notified brand, and Eikon confirms a brand has notified Health Canada before stocking it. Health Canada sets and enforces the impurity and microbial limits, lead under 10 ppm, arsenic and cadmium under 3, mercury under 1, alongside the ISO 17516 microbial benchmarks, and meeting them is the manufacturer's responsibility. Empire is founder-led and made in the USA, in Colt Brown's own Neenah, Wisconsin facility, with no FDA recall on record (the 2003–2024 peer-reviewed recall survey doesn't list Empire). That's the honest trust picture: a vegan, clean-record, notified brand brought into Canada without the artist navigating customs or paperwork.

What Should You Know for Reactive Clients?

Empire keeps its formulation details close: it publishes no per-shade Color Index numbers and no public carrier breakdown, though a safety data sheet is linked on each ink's product page. For most black-and-grey work that's a non-issue, but for a client with a known sensitivity it's worth naming. Check the SDS on the product page before booking, and patch-test as standard. Vegan doesn't mean allergen-free: any pigment, vegan or not, can provoke a reaction in a sensitive client, so the 24-hour patch test is the precaution regardless of the label.

One expectation to set on the washes: the lightest values are the most sparsely pigmented, so as with any low-load wash, the faintest tones soften first over the years, artists customarily push contrast a little harder at application to account for it. That's general wash behaviour, not an Empire quirk. Set the look itself with the client too: Empire's graywash heals to a cool, slightly bluish grey by design — the contrast that makes B&G portraits read on warm skin, so a client expecting a warm or neutral grey should see healed examples before you start.

Which Empire Product for Which Work

Once you've decided pre-mixed consistency is your workflow, the line sorts cleanly by the job:

• Portrait and black-and-grey realism, full value range — the Graywash and Whitewash sets together: graywash for transparent shadows, whitewash for deliberate values.

• Dark realism, dark illustration, blackwork shading — the Blackwash Series, for progressive depth at the dark end without the white-carry of graywash.

• Single-bottle simplicity — Classic Black as the all-rounder; Vine Black for fast lining and cap-diluted washes; Mars Black for large-area opaque packing; Ivory Black for the deepest passages.

• Custom carrier control — the four Mixing Mediums, to build your own dilutions from the same components Empire uses.

Empire owns the greyscale, so it pairs naturally with a broad colour line for full-colour pieces. For a dedicated solid lining-and-packing black, Panthera is the black specialist; you can also browse the best tattoo ink brands Eikon carries to place Empire alongside the rest of the roster. Canadian artists on Team Empire, David Gluck (Duncan, BC), Nadia Most (Toronto / Newmarket, ON), and Corey Popp, anchor the brand at home.

Like all tattoo ink at Eikon, Empire is sold to verified professionals on a Pro Account and ships Canada-wide from Kingston, Ontario. Three Empire lines aren't stocked through Eikon, the 10-colour Color Series, the artist Signature Series sets, and the Beat It Black charity edition. Setting up a station? Add your washes to the same order as professional tattoo cartridges.