People Are Tattooing Their Eyeballs Different Colors By Injecting Them With Pigment

Tattooing your eyeball may sound like some kind of nightmare to some, but it's a form of body modification that some people choose willingly. It's a relatively new craze, the BBC claim it's less than a decade old and, as stated by Buzzfeed, was started by US tattoo artist Luna Cobra, who wanted to mimic the blue-eyes of the spice-users from the movie Dune.

So, naturally, he started experimenting with injecting ink into his eyeballs. "His technique, which he has modified over the years," explains the BBC, "involves injecting pigment directly into the eyeball so it rests under the eye's thin top layer, or conjunctiva. A single small injection has enough ink to cover about a quarter of the eye. It takes several injections to completely cover the sclera, which is then coloured for life."

The permanency of it means you really, really need to think about the color. A lot of people choose black so they look scary, but are you going to want to have the eyes of a shark for the rest of your life?

As for whether it hurts, most people say the procedure is painless. "It feels like somebody is poking at your eye, then it feels like strange pressure and then it feels you have a bit of sand in your eye" said. one recipient.

The American Optometric Association isn't in favor of it though, saying it puts people at risk of infection, inflammation, and blindness.

Still, since Luna's initial experiments the craze has grown in popularity in the body modification community. There's a Facebook page dedicated it and Instagram hashtag #eyeballtattoos has over a thousand posts.