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Though tattoos have lost much of their stigma since its creation, they nonetheless remain a pretty frightening prospect for many who desire one: they are painful, permanent and expensive. Temporary tattoos on the other hand are affordable and pain-free, but they only last a couple of days before disintegrating into an embarrassing mess. Enter Inkbox, the Canadian startup that has invented a fruit-based temporary tattoo which lasts for two weeks — elevating the temporary tattoo to a respectable accessory.

Inkbox offers a selection of simple, blue-black graphic designs created by a host of artists, as well as the option for customers to create their own design. The tattoos arrive in the form of a dark black square: users begin by peeling of the back layer before placing it on their skin in the desired spot. Next they dampen the patch with a provided towlette, holding it firmly in place for ten minutes — this causes the cotton layer of the device to release the active fruit-based formula onto the skin in the shape of the chosen stencil. Finally, the user removes the stencil and the tattoo appears gradually over the following 24 hours.

The Inkbox tattoo temporarily stains the first layer of skin — the epidermis — which exfoliates, but doesn’t reach the non-exfoliating dermis. So the design sits in the skin temporarily but doesn’t create a permanent mark.

Inkbox is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, where pledgers can pre-order a design from their catalog from CAD 18, or create a custom tattoo from CAD 47, with delivery in Oct 2015. Could other companies also use Inkbox’s organic formula?