I tried the new temporary tattoos that look super realistic - and they fooled all my friends

A new startup called Momentary Ink wants you to be able to "try on" a tattoo before you commit to a lifetime of having it on your body.

Founder Jordan Denny has been working for the past 9 months to make a temporary tattoo realistic enough to pass for the real thing, and finally started selling the customizable tattoos a few days ago.

Denny says his tattoos last 3-10 days, and use a special matting solution that stops them from looking shiny, or wet like dollar-store temporaries.

But "realistic" has different definitions, especially to startup founders, so I decided to test it out myself. The process was easy.

All I had to do was upload a design and send it to Momentary Ink. Since Halloween was coming up, I decided on the "Dark Mark" tattoo that evil wizards ("Death Eaters") have in Harry Potter.

When I got my Momentary Ink tattoo and tried it out, the results surprised me. I hadn't expected it to look quite so real, and many people I ran into over the next few days assumed it was the genuine article. More than that, Momentary Ink had actually fulfilled its promise. For almost a week, I've walked around and "felt" what it would be like to have this tattoo. Long story short, I'm definitely not getting a dark mark tattoo anytime soon.

At $15 for a "small" (0-4 inches) and $19 for a larger one (4-8 inches), Momentary Ink isn't cheap. And if you are just getting it to have a temporary tattoo for a few days, I don't think I could justify the cost. But if you are using it as designed, to make sure you actually want to get inked up forever, it seems perfectly reasonable.

Here's what getting a Momentary Ink tattoo is like: