Squid ink is the new Garra fish

All right, that was an April Fools' Day treat for you.

You’ve all heard of the fish pedicure and the spray tan and may even have experienced a vajazzling, but the new craze sweeping across the Atlantic to the UK is a hybrid beauty treatment. The squid ink system from the SquidsInc team has become a favourite of many top Hollywood celebrities and will now be available to fair skinned types in the UK too.

The product offers a semi-permanent tan that lasts twice as long as other products on the market, and it comes without the cancer risk of UV tan systems. It’s perfect for the UK market.

Beauticians must take a safety course in Squids before they are certified to administer the technique. The beautician, or Squidologist as they are aptly named, removes the squid fresh from a tank and entices it to produce the formula or ‘Ink’ using a miniature tickle stick. The pressure at which the ink is released enables it to spray an even tan onto the client.

As the process is quite technical the price of the treatment does not come cheap compared to other faux tan methods. Buff Justice in Manchester is offering the treatment at £35 per squid plus £20 for the beautician. It takes three Squids to cover an average sized person, but the larger client may have to squeeze out a little extra to get the perfect tan.

Squids inThe squids, which are sourced from off the west coast of Indonesia, have been found to produce a rare ink that stains even the fairest of skin a beautiful olive colour when applied from precisely 23cm away.

This is due to a chemical in the ink, tentaceptide, reacting with the air, and subsequently the skin. Kallie O’Marie, marine beautician and owner of SquidsInc, is glad that her product is now being franchised in Manchester explaining that: “the product offers a semi-permanent tan that lasts twice as long as other products on the market, and it comes without the cancer risk of UV tan systems. It’s perfect for the UK market as lots of celebrities are already advocates of sunless tanning. I’m currently in talks with David Dickinson and Dale Winton to help market the product further”.

But is it safe and humane? Kallie has assured us that the product has been dermatologically tested and is in line with other regulations, even though she’s not really checked that out.