Cosmetic tattooing is tattooing under two Acts, and skin penetration under a third.

New South Wales: two definitions, two regimes

New South Wales keeps the two words in separate instruments, and the separation is written into the licensing Act itself. Body art tattooing is defined as a tattooing procedure performed for decorative purposes, but does not include a cosmetic tattooing procedure.

Cosmetic tattooing is then defined in its own right: a tattooing procedure performed to give someone an eyeliner, eyebrows or another make-up effect on a permanent basis, or performed by a medical practitioner or for a medical reason, or any procedure prescribed by regulation.

What follows for a business is a two-route system. Body art tattooing runs on the Tattoo Parlours Act 2012: a master licence to carry on the business at premises, a separate master licence for each set of premises, and a tattooist licence for the individual performing the procedure for fee or reward, unless that individual is self-employed at premises for which they hold the master licence, works under a visiting tattooist permit, or falls within other circumstances the regulations prescribe. The Act even defines the commissioner who administers its licensing: in its definitions, the Commissioner means the Commissioner of Police.

Cosmetic tattooing runs on the public health system instead. NSW Health's beauty treatment page records that beauticians carry out beauty treatments that involve skin penetration procedures, and cosmetic tattooing is one of the treatments it names. The notification form for skin penetration procedures lists cosmetic tattooing among the procedures conducted, so the work sits under the same council notification as waxing and electrolysis rather than under a Tattoo Parlours Act licence.

Victoria: one word, two kinds of mark

Victoria does not split the words in the way New South Wales does. Its definition of tattooing is one process with two outcomes: penetrating a person's skin to insert colour pigments, giving either a permanent mark, pattern or design, or a semi-permanent one, and the definition says in terms that the semi-permanent limb takes in the application of semi-permanent make-up, and of cosmetic tattooing.

The Act also keeps its classes apart, which settles where a cosmetic tattooist's business sits. Skin penetration is one defined class, and tattooing is expressly left out of it and defined as its own class. A business involving tattooing registers its premises with the council, in the same scheme as beauty therapy and skin penetration.

Two client-facing duties attach to tattooing. The department's guidance requires approved information about the risks and safeguards of tattooing to be given to a client before the procedure, and written information about the risk of infectious diseases that is accurate and not misleading. And the record-keeping rule reaches tattooing directly: businesses providing tattooing, body piercing or other skin penetration procedures must keep client records, with ear piercing and dry needling left out of that list.

Queensland: cosmetic tattooing is tattooing

Queensland puts both markings in one word. Its definition of tattooing is penetrating the skin and inserting colour pigments to make a permanent mark, pattern or design, and it also includes any process that penetrates the skin and inserts pigments for a semi-permanent mark.

The state's own categorisation table confirms where that lands: cosmetic tattooing, including microblading and the application of semi-permanent make-up, is included in the definition of tattooing, and tattooing is a higher risk personal appearance service.

So the licence is required, the premises must be stated on it, and the person doing the work must hold the infection control qualification. Removal of a tattoo is a higher risk service too, prescribed by regulation; the table records one limit on that, that the prescription excludes tattoo removal using lasers.

Western Australia: the code's tattooing requirements

Western Australia addresses the work through the code of practice its regulations adopt, under a heading of its own: special requirements for tattooing, sitting beside the beauty therapy and body piercing sections of the same appendix.

The code's tattooing rules are short and absolute. Needles must always be sterile, disposable and single-use, and a needle must never be reused; if the area to be tattooed needs shaving, a new disposable safety razor is used and afterwards put into an approved sharps container; and as the general rule for skin-penetrating equipment, single-dose vials and single-use sterile equipment are to be used every time, with multiple-use vials and equipment prohibited unless the Chief Health Officer has approved or exempted that type.

The code's tattooing requirements are written about the procedure and the instrument: needles, razors and single-use vials.

What each state calls the work

Set the three statutes side by side and cosmetic tattooing is defined by what each one needs it to be. In New South Wales it is expressly not body art tattooing, and it is skin penetration work under the public health system. In Victoria it is tattooing, with the semi-permanent limb spelled out inside the definition, and the business registers its premises with the council. In Queensland it is tattooing, and that classification alone is what requires the state's higher risk licence.

The words are not the only thing that differs. The materials are covered by different instruments in each state: ink and pigment rules under the NSW Regulation require the liquid to be decanted into a single-use container with a single-use applicator for each person, and the WA code's tattooing requirements carry the needle and razor rules set out above.

Two carve-outs show where the line stops. New South Wales puts procedures carried out by a registered health practitioner, or under their direction or supervision in the course of providing a health service, outside its skin penetration definition altogether. And its definition of cosmetic tattooing already reaches work done by a medical practitioner or for a medical reason. A medical tattoo is a medical question, and this site treats it the way it treats the rest of the medical edge: it stops, and points to the health system.

The tally letters on this page mean what they mean on every page: a solid letter is a state whose law asks something of the work, an outlined letter is a state whose law leaves it out, and a blank is a state whose law this guide cannot state. South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory show blanks for these rows.

Is waxing skin penetration? The same question, argued in four definitions