Boulder, Colorado - Carson Bruns is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, but a recent invention has the potential to make him rich. His creation: a self-disappearing tattoo that can be turned off and on.

The technology Bruns developed, which he dubs "Magic Ink," reveals itself when presented with ultraviolet light but turns off when touched by the sun or the beam of a flashlight.

His invention, developed alongside Keith 'Bang Bang' McCurdy and his company HYPRSKN, has already been made available for sale.

A single bottle will set you back $100, and red is the only color currently available.

According to Bruns, the ink will allow people to "turn off" their tattoos whenever they want. That means that they could hide their ink for court appearances, or keep their tats secret from their grandma.

The disappearing ink is made of dye encased in beads of a plexiglass material that has been FDA-approved for use in lip fillers.

Seeing as the FDA doesn't regulate the tattoo industry, the new "Magic Ink" is likely to be made available sooner than you'd expect. Still, creator Carson Bruns has actively warned against early adoption.

"If somebody is going to get tattooed with Magic Ink, they have to accept a degree of uncertainty about what the future is going to hold with that ink," he told KFF Health News.

Having received generous funding for his research and invention, Bruns is continuing to work with colleagues to establish which size and type of nanoparticles are best for the task at hand.

Still, having partnered up with Keith McCurdy – a celebrity tattooist who has inked the likes of Rihanna and Justin Bieber – he plans on releasing the Magic Ink to a select group of tattoo artists in early 2024.

"You can go to court and turn it off," he said in the KFF Health News interview, "And then go to the party and turn it on. And then go to Grandma's house and turn it off."