How to care for tattoo?

The healing of your tattoo is the final aspect of your art piece. The opinions and advice given are endless, and there are more experts out there than tattoos. Since we guarantee our work we ask you to follow our advice and not your buddy’s that has three tattoos. Just as with a psychiatrist, you’ll probably never get the same advice or instructions from different artists. But after many years of combined experience, you will find this information very beneficial in healing your Unique Ink tattoo.

A tattoo normally takes anywhere from 7 to 14 days to look fully healed, depending on the type, style, size, and placement. The truth is that it can really take up to a month for a tattoo to be fully healed below the surface of the skin and for your body’s natural healing abilities to lock the ink in completely. Yes, all of these things can and will make a difference. There is no “idiot proof” method, but if you take the time to read the following, you will stand a much better chance of healing your tattoo without any problems to ensure that it looks as good as possible. We recommend two products only during the healing process: Plain unscented Lubriderm lotion and/or Aquaphor. These two products have been time-tested and proven over years of experience and history itself!! Aquaphor is a little bit of a thicker product and a little more expensive, but it’s more than worth it and will heal your tattoo much faster. The one thing that you need to make sure of, is that you rub it all the way in like you were putting suntan lotion on. I have personally healed a 7-hour solid color tattoo in one week using the Aquaphor. I can also tell you that you would be hard-pressed to find a reputable tattooist that would disagree with these two products. On the other side of the coin, you will hear of all kinds of other products to use like Neosporin, Curel, Cocoa Butter, Noxzema, Bacitracin…. the list goes on and on. While some of these products will work, many have special considerations and potential problems. The other thing is that, if you start giving people too many options then they might think that it is ok to use something close and end up using something wrong and thus causing some sort of problem with their tattoo.

A word of caution about Neosporin: many will recommend this for the healing of tattoos and it sounds like a good idea. The problem is that it may do too well of a job! I have seen lots of tattoos that were healed with Neosporin and they had lots of color loss or light spots, not all of the time, but way too often. The thing is that Neosporin has a lot of zinc in it and it also contains petrolatum which promotes healing too fast and it helps pull the ink particles out of your skin instead of allowing your body to lock in the ink at the cellular level. I hope that these instructions have helped you, that you follow them to heal your new piece of artwork and that you will have something special to show off. You need to remember that the good Lord has made us all different, and as such, all of our skin is different, and therefore we heal differently. You know your body and how it heals better than anyone else, and while one thing may work for you, it may work differently for another. These are simply guidelines that will help you should you decide that they make sense to you.