Healing and taking care of your new tattoo

There are so many ways to heal your tattoo! It’s really all about personal preference. You can just use saniderm, a sanitary guard that you keep on during healing (5 days), or you can heal dry or use an unscented lotion and unscented antibacterial soap which is what I prefer. 

Saniderm is a plastic shield put on right after tattoo is finished. It is the easiest, most stress free way to heal your tattoo. It is applied at the end of your tattoo session and you keep it on anywhere from 4-7 days, when you remove the bandage you want to do it with clean hands under running water. After bandage is removed wash with unscented antibacterial soap for another 7 days and apply an unscented lotion when it feels a bit dry. If you have saniderm on and your tattoo begins to feel hot, painful, redness the day(s) after getting the tattoo, blisters, discontinue use immediately. Take off under running water and wash with unscented antibacterial soap.

When getting a tattoo several needles puncture the skin between 50-3,000 times per minute. The needle enters the outer layer of the skin and delivers ink to the central layer of skin. Crazy to think that your new permanent piece of art is an open wound. 

This is when you first get your tattoo, it’s fresh, it’s stingy, and it’s smooth. At this stage you’re going to want to wash it 2-3 times a day with unscented antibacterial soap, this is an open wound so it needs to be treated as such. It will feel a little dry sometimes, for this stage the most comfortable moisturizer for the fresh ink would be aquaphor. You don’t want to use too much because your new tattoo, and wound, needs to breathe to nicely heal. I’d recommend using about a pea size amount maybe even less. 

At this stage your skin starts to feel a little stiff and rough, it is starting to scab. You can start calming down a bit, it’s hurting less, and you should wash it when you wake up and when you go to bed with unscented antibacterial soap. At this stage I would use a good, unscented lotion instead of using aquaphor that was used in stage 1. Use lotion whenever you feel it’s necessary. At the end of this stage it will begin to itch and possibly even peel. DO NOT ITCH/SCRATCH WITH NAILS OR PEEL OFF SCAB! I know it’s tempting, I know you want to. If it itches rub your knuckles on it and give it a nice nuggie to relive the itch. 

At this stage your tattoo is done scabbing and should be mostly done itching so bad. You can amp it down to washing it once a day with unscented antibacterial soap and use lotion whenever you feel necessary. 

Another way you can heal your tattoos is dry healing, to be honest this is really what I do sometimes because I have a bad habit of forgetting about my new tattoo. Dry healing is where you just leave it until it’s done healing, wash with unscented antibacterial soap twice a day for the first few days, I typically moisturize when it gets all scabby but other than that I just leave it. So, if you’re like me and forget about your new art, no need to fret it will be just fine if you forget <3

A month after your appointment you will 100% be good to get in the pool and apply sunscreen and have your fun in the sun! Just keep in mind, everyone heals at different speeds and a month is just the average. Some people heal slower and some heal faster. 

ALWAYS use sunscreen when going in the sun! ESPECIALLY if you have a colored tattoo. The sun is like a giant tattoo removal laser, just works a little slower, the sun is not your tattoo’s friend! There are a bunch of tattoo lotions and balms that can be used to keep your tattoo looking nice and vibrant!