aftercare
Individual sections for color packing & linework/smaller scale pieces below
Large Scale Color Packing
So we wrapped you up with a bandage. I suggest leaving that on overnight to give your skin time to heal a bit and to protect it from unwanted exposure while you sleep. The next morning go ahead and take the bandage off, jump in the shower with some anti-bacterial soap, and give it a gentle rinse to clean off any residual blood, ink, and plasma that’s stuck to your skin. I stress the word gentle here. You don’t want to aggravate the skin here. Suds up the soap in your hands, splash some water onto the tattoo, and then use gentle circular motions & splashing water to clean it off. Once it’s clean you’re going to want to air dry the tattoo completely and give it the rest of the day to do its thing.
I suggest dry healing it through the peeling stage. This is a bit of “body knows best” philosophy but also a bit of “moisturizing that much peeling skin is going to make knocking off bits more likely”. So let it dry, let it peel, let it do its thing. Your job is to make sure you’re getting plenty of sleep, lots of good food, and not picking at it/causing excess abrasion.
Your body is getting rid of the old epidermis as it creates new skin to replace it, so you want to make sure that that old epidermis isn’t coming off before your body intends it to. Avoid long hot showers, getting super sweaty, wearing tight clothes or clothes that could catch on it, don’t go swimming, don’t go wrestling, don’t pick at it, don’t go tanning, etc for about a week or so while it heals. You can lightly moisturize if it’s super itchy. I also suggest slapping. There’s nothing quite like a solid slap to an itchy tattoo.
Once it’s finished peeling is when you want to start moisturizing. You got some brand new skin there and you want to make sure it has all the nutrients that it needs! Not to mention that dry skin can make your tattoo look cloudy.
It will take roughly 6 months for your skin to be 100% healed, during that time period moisturizing, sun screen, and general skin care are most important for the longevity of your tattoo.
as always, please don’t be afraid to contact me if you have any questions! and also as always i’ll be going over all of this at your appointment while we’re wrapping it up.
Linework or Smaller Scale Piece
We probably used Tegaderm, Saniderm, or Secondskin. These are excellent products formulated to protect the skin while it begins the healing process. There’s also a chance we used saran wrap if it’s in a weird spot that Tegaderm couldn’t quite work on.
There are a lot of different ways to heal using this method - for the most in depth and effective method I’d suggest checking out this video. That’s if you want to be super duper careful and feel like buying your own roll of Tegaderm.
I generally suggest leaving the Tegaderm wrap on for roughly 36 hours, and the Saran wrap on till the next morning. While it’s on the body is creating a temporary layer of skin to protect the skin we just worked on. Take if off in the shower, peeling with your skin not away from your skin (parallel vs. perpendicular). Once it’s off give it a light scrub with some gentle soap to wash off all of the bodily fluids and such. For the next two weeks your skin will continue to heal underneath that temporary layer of skin. As the skin heals the “scab” will flake off and shed.
there’s a balance between moisturizing so much that the '“scab” is too wet and comes off before it’s supposed to, and too little to the point that it dries up and cracks off. I generally suggest using coconut oil, lubriderm, shea butter, aloe, snail mucus, or really anything that’s not petroleum based. (don’t want to go clogging your beautiful pores now do we?) Every body is different and yours especially is unique and precious. That being said, maybe you’ll only need to moisturize once a day for a week, maybe you’ll need to moisturize three times a day for two weeks. Use your best judgement to keep it at a place that’s not so dry it’s coming off, and not so wet it’s coming off. Tricky! but honestly not that difficult to do, there’s also a pretty broad tolerance in this regard.
but!
This is why we always say to not go swimming or take baths or anything like that for two weeks, or until the skin is fully healed. This is partially for moisture control and partially because standing water, usually has a lovely Petri dish of bacteria, that just isn’t ideal for a fresh wound.
if you take excellent care of your new sticker for roughly two weeks after receiving it, A + to you! However, it will take roughly 6 months for the ink to fully settle and be incorporated into your skin. This is the period where you really want to be careful to avoid excessive sun exposure and maintain your moisturizing regiment :)
as always, please don’t be afraid to contact me if you have any questions! and also as always i’ll be going over all of this at your appointment while we’re wrapping it up.