Eli5 why do tattoo machines not cut your skin?

Question

I see it all the time in videos. The tattoo artist pulls a line on the skin, but the needle part needs to be deep into the skin to deposit the ink, so how does it keep pulling the line without cutting the skin?

In: 12

Answer 1

The needle doesn’t stay in to cut the skin open. It goes in and out at a very rapid pace “poking” the ink in to the skin.