A Letter From Mario Barth

“I did my first tattoo in 1978. You couldn’t find a tattoo supplier then. You couldn’t buy machines, colors, or needles. I had to begin in my kitchen with a blender and a basic black ink.”

That’s how Intenze started. I never set out to be a supplier. I didn’t intend to just produce quality ink—I wanted to work with it. As an artist, I wanted to push my limitations while creating work that redefined possibilities. I just needed the tools that let me.

We’ve come a long way since then. Today we produce over 250 colors. We just tore down the cleanest manufacturing facility to build a cleaner one. But ultimately we’re still artists, and our work comes down to one simple goal: to make tools that let artists achieve the unimaginable.

Every piece, every client—we want to do something that’s never been done before. Same goes for our ink. From being the first company to label tattoo ink, to developing a fingerprint-like system that traces where each bottle we produced came from and where it’s been, we’re constantly trying to find better ways to produce a safer, higher quality ink.

I guess that’s why we’re hard on our ink. We understand that artists and clients are ultimately going to get out of it what we put in. It’s why I test it on myself. It’s why we sterilize, mix, and bottle our product in a Clean Room. And it’s why all the ink we produce is tested and validated by third-party labs.

When I look back at 1978, I realize that a lot has changed. But our core remains the same. I still use this ink every single day, and our goal is the same today as it was back then—to make a tattoo pigment that performs no matter who the artist is and regardless of the conditions. I want to make ink that takes the guesswork out of tattooing.

This is what we owe to our clients and ourselves. Providing ink that’s safe and delivers amazing results isn’t just our responsibility as a company; it should be our highest aspirations as artists.

We can’t stop trying to make our ink better. We won’t stop. In the process, we hope that we’re helping create a higher standard in the industry with tools that our clients can count on and artists can depend on. Ultimately, we believe our obsession combined with your passion can push the soul and science of tattoo into possibilities that we never could have imagined.

Sincerely,
Mario Barth