Tattoo Aftercare and the Healing process

Tattoo Aftercare and the Healing process

After the tattoo is complete you may want to bandage the tattoo. Basic
First Aid teaches us that denying a wound of oxygen will dramatically slow the
healing time. Since the invention of the plastic wrap, people have been
putting it on there tattoos. Don’t do this. What is a green house? A green
house is a building with a frame and glass so the sun can get in and make
things grow. Your giving people a bacteria farm by putting plastic wrap on a
tattoo. Light can get in and heat up the tattoo causing bacteria to grow, the
plastic seals away all oxygen so your body cannot fight the infection or allow
the natural healing process. You must view a tattoo as a wound, it’s an
abrasion comparable to skinning your knee. The first two hours of a tattoo
healing is the most important. The tattoo will seep blood and plasma (the
clear stuff) for about fifteen minutes. You can bandage the tattoo to help
guard against bacteria on the clients ride home, but after about thirty
minutes it needs to come off. If you bandage tattoos then you need to pick up
some non stick gauze and medical tape. Clean the tattoo very well with green
soap and rinse all the soap off with water. If you leave the soap on then you
will dry out the tattoo. This is the only time that I will recommend using a
small amount of vasoline on the tattoo. This will help the bandage not to stick
to the skin. Cut a section of the non stick gauze to fit over the tattooed area
and another two inches. Only tape the top and bottom so the wound can
breath. If oxygen can’t get to it then it can’t heal. Tell your client that it
must be taken off within thirty minutes and not to bandage it again. If they
work in an area that will get the tattoo dirty, have them ware clothes that
will cover and protect it. If you leave a bandage on longer than thirty
minutes, then the blood and plasma will dry causing the bandage to stick to
the wound. If they pull it off then they will pull out your work. Have them
wash the tattoo as soon as they take off the bandage in warm water and
antibacterial soap. This removes any blood, plasma, and extra pigment left in
the skin. If the bandage does want to stick then you can have them run warm
water over the bandage to loosen it from the skin.
For larger tattoos you want you client to take a hot shower. Not so it
burns them, but as hot as they can stand. The hot water will open up the
pours and then wash it with antibacterial soap. When they rinse off the tattoo
they should use cold water. The hot water opens everything up, and the cold
seals it after they wash out all the crap that needs to be gone. The next day
they won’t be half as sore, and the tattoo will heal twice as fast. The ancient
Japanese use to jump in a natural hot spring to soak there tattoos clean, then
after a few minutes they would get in the cold water to achieve the same
goal. If a healing technique is 2,000 years old then it must be right. Smaller
tattoos don’t need to worry about this, but the larger piece will thank you
later, after they forget about how bad the hot water burned. Make sure to
have your client wash there tattoo with there hand, in circular motions. A
cloth will cause more damage to already irritated skin.
The first thing I want you to put on your tattoo is pure acetone and
used engine oil. What, you don’t like the sound of that? That’s what everyone
has been doing for years. Maybe not those chemicals but they have been
putting crap that pulls out the pigment causing fading, and seals bacteria in
the skin, and you as an artist tell people to do this every day. Lets use our
heads here a little. Tattoo pigments are a chemical housed in a carrier
solution. For the exact nature look back at the pigment section, but the most
used carrier solution is water, and glycerin. Tattoo artist are telling people to
put chemicals like “A+D Ointment”, “Neosporin” Bacitracion, “ Vasoline”,
Petroleum Jelly, “Triple Anti-Biotic Ointment”, and Other chemicals like
brand name “Tattoo Goo”. Every one of these chemicals are oil based. Have
you ever mixed oil and water? They don’t mix. The oil base in these chemicals
pull out the pigment of your tattoo. You say “I’ve used that for years and
mine are fine.”, then good for you. Do you remember when you plastered that
crap on your tattoo? Ever seen the pigment running down your skin two or
three days after it was done? What about waking up in the morning to find the
outline of your tattoo on your sheet? It’s not suppose to do that. That would
be the pigment leaving your skin. I know that there will be a handful of artist
that will stick to old faithful, but for the rest of us with a brain, lets look a
little further. The products that are made for tattoo healing are all oil based.
The only reason they are a product is because you buy it for five bucks and
sell it to your clients for fifteen. When I use to recommend those products I
was doing five or six touch ups a week. After I stopped, I bet I have only done
ten in the entire year of 2008. One out of every five clients are allergic to
them also. Symptoms include swelling, infection, red rash around the tattoo,
almost all of the pigment coming out, a healing time of more that six weeks,
and massive scarring. I refuse to carry any of these products in my shop. If
that’s not good enough for you then how about some more medical facts.
Oil based products like “A+D ointment” are zero oxygen barriers. What
this means in that lack of oxygen will stop the healing process. Hepatitis can
live for a few days on a dirty surface, and once exposed to the air, HIV can
only live for seven seconds. In a zero oxygen environment HIV can live in “
A+D “ for more than six weeks, and Hep can live indefinitely. So if you get
Hep in a jar of vasoline it can still infect you ten years later. Here is some
food for thought, “A+D” is a chemical designed for diaper rash. For diaper
rash it’s the number one product out there, but for a tattoo it causes more
than a thousand cases of staff infection per year, and one in every ten will
have an allergic reaction form use on a tattoo. As a matter of fact it says right
on the tube to not use this product on open wounds. “A+D” is made from
lanolin, which is boiled sheep wool and “non-sterile, non-medical grade
petroleum.” I don’t want that in my open wound.
Ok, so now that I have completely destroyed what every one was ever
taught about tattoo after care, what the hell do we use? Its much easier and
much less expensive. Soap and lotion. A tattoo takes on average about ten
days to heal all the way. For the entire course of the tattoo healing you want
to wash the tattoo with antibacterial soap. The soap you want is the non
scented soap. You can get “Dial” of the cheep equivalent. Any soap with
perfumes in it will cause more irritation. Most of the perfumes in soaps and
lotions contain rubbing alcohol to dilute the chemical. Rubbing alcohol will
burn, and dry out the tattoo. It will cause you body to work three and four
times harder to heal as well as braking up the pigment under your skin. Why
antibacterial soap? A tattoo is still a wound. Infection does not come from a
tattoo shop. You get infection from hitting your exposed wound on something
else that’s infected. You wash it two or three times a day to prevent
infection. After two days “48 hours” you can apply a small amount of non
scented lotion. You need to wait two days because the tattoo is still setting
up, or getting the protective layer over it. If you apply lotion too soon you
will coat the tattoo in a layer that will hold in bacteria. If you apply the
lotion too soon, there is a chance your tattoo will get red and irritated as well
as up the chances for you to get an infection. Non scented lotion is for the
same reason, perfumes and alcohol. If you use a lotion that burns when you
apply it, then you are using the wrong lotion. The best part is that you can go
to your local everything store and get the small bottles in the travel section
of about fifty cents. One small tube will last the entire tattoo. So you have a
dollar in the soap and fifty cents in the lotion, you can’t beat that.
Just a few of the advantages to the soap and lotion method will more
than impress compared to oil based products. You save money, your colors
will be brighter than you have ever seen and they will stay like that. I did a
large set of grey wash flowers on my fiancé, and no one believes they are
more than three weeks old. The fact is I did them more than a year and a half
ago. They still look brand new, and will be as black as the day I did them
when she is ninety. Your tattoo will not seep after thirty minutes. This means
that you will not stain your clothes or your sheets, and you don’t have to fight
that oil out of your clothes when you wash them and because there is no
blood present to scab, the tattoo just lightly peels like a sunburn. I’m sorry
but as an artist I want my work to look the best it can. I’m not going to sell
my clients crap that destroys my work and there tattoo. I cut my expenses in
half not having to do as many touch ups. If you have to sell something in the
display case, sell a few different types of lotion and antibacterial soap.
Sometimes you will see heavy scabbing using this method. This means that the
client is not using the lotion often enough. My challenge to you, is do one
tattoo on your self and heal it with soap and lotion like I said, If you don’
think it’s a hundred percent difference after three months, to see how bright
the tattoo stays, then throw my book away and tell everyone I’m a quack.
Other than that, the basic rules still apply. Don’t scratch a tattoo. If
you scratch a tattoo then the pigment may come out with a section of scab or
peeling skin, this I known as a holiday. Don’t soak in the tub or go swimming.
Over exposure to water softens the skin and can cause it to peel prematurely.
Also do not try to shave a tattooed are till it peels, no matter how bad you
may want to. A razor will open it right back up. Tanning beds are a no,
Period. Covering a towel will not stop UV light from damaging the tattoo. The
harmful rays that damage a tattoo are evenly dispersed by your body. If you
want your tattoo to look good for the rest of your life then don’t tan, it will
fade your tattoo like the sun fades paint. You shouldn’t tan anyway. Someone
that tans everyday for ten years has a better chance of getting cancer than a
smoker on two packs a day for twenty years. If you don’t believe me, look it
up. If you have to tan or you work out in the sun, then please take care of
your tattoo. Use a high SPF sun block to keep your tattoo from fading. Also
some pigments may look a little redder in color than they should. This is due
to the irritation of the needle and it will go away. In a few hour the white
that looks pink will be really bright. That’s pretty much it for aftercare, just
use your best judgment and don’t go by what someone else tells you, research