Today’s entry to the ranks of “technologies that are cool in a technical sense but also don’t seem like a particularly great idea” comes from London-based startup CipherX, which describes itself as “a biotech start-up pioneering the next generation of microneedle technology for high-impact products across lifestyle, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical markets.” If you’re wondering exactly what that means, it translates as follows: they’re selling permanent stick-on tattoos! The tattoos use the company’s proprietary “MicroDot Technology™ platform” and come in the form of little patches that are pressed onto your skin for 15 minutes. The application process seems not unlike those temporary tattoos that you apply by pressing them onto your skin and then wetting them with a washcloth, except that in this case, instead of a washcloth, you use an applicator that pushes the patch against your skin, thus forcing the “ultra-fine, microscopic structures (smaller than 1 mm) … to penetrate the upper layers of the skin and deposit pigment.” The phrase “ultra-fine, microscopic structures” seems to be a nice way of saying “tiny needles,” but apparently they’re basically painless: The Verge’s Jess Weatherbed took one for the team by actually getting one of these things, reporting that the application process “felt more like someone had lightly touched my arm with their finger.” Clearly this is excellent news for people with needle phobias and others who have wanted a tattoo but have been unable or unwilling to subject themselves to traditional tattooing.