Aftercare

A tattoo is an open wound with ink in it. The surface closes in about two weeks. The skin underneath keeps remodelling for months after that, which is why a tattoo looks finished long before it is.¹

Almost everything that goes wrong goes wrong in the first week, and most of it is preventable. Do what is written here. If your body tells you something different, stop reading and call.

The first night

1. Leave the wrap on for the time you were told, and not longer. A plain wrap comes off in two to four hours. An adhesive film, SanidermA clear, breathable, medical adhesive film. Tegaderm, Dermalize and Second Skin are the same idea under other names. It seals the wound and keeps its own weeping against the skin, which is why it looks so bad through the plastic. or Tegaderm or similar, stays on for the time written on the sheet you were handed, usually one to three days. Either way, take it off before you sleep in it a second night.
2. Take it off with clean hands, under warm running water. Peel it back slowly along the skin, not straight up off it. Under the film there will be a pool of plasmaThe clear, straw-coloured liquid part of blood, left once the cells are taken out of it. A fresh wound weeps it. Clear or straw is normal; thick, opaque yellow or green is not., ink and lymphThe fluid that drains out of tissue into the lymphatic vessels, carrying immune cells and whatever they have picked up. Some of the ink you lose in the first two weeks leaves this way.. It looks alarming. It is meant to be there.
3. Wash it. Lukewarm water, fragrance-free liquid soap, your fingertips only. No cloth, no sponge, no loofah. Wash until the surface stops feeling slick, which takes longer than you think, then rinse.
4. Dry it by patting with a clean paper towel, not a bath towel. A bath towel is damp, used and shared, and it catches on the edges of the wound.
5. Let it air-dry for twenty minutes, then put on the thinnest possible layer of ointment. Thin enough that it looks matte, not shiny. A thick layer keeps the surface wet, wet skin stays soft, and soft scab lifts early.
6. Sleep on clean sheets. If you can, sleep so the tattoo is not against anything. If it will be, put a clean cotton t-shirt between it and the bed.

[ art 01]

care-01-wrapped-day-one.png
Alt: A forearm tattoo under clear adhesive film on day one, plasma and loose ink pooled under the plastic.
The picture that answers the 2am question. A real client, with written permission, or Ryan's own arm.

The first week

1. Wash it twice a day, morning and night, the same way as the first night. Fingertips, fragrance-free soap, pat dry, thin ointment.
2. Thin ointment twice a day for about five days, then switch to a plain fragrance-free lotion. The flaking starting is the signal to switch.
3. It will scab lightly and then flake, somewhere between day four and day ten.¹ The flakes come off with colour in them. That is dead surface skin carrying loose pigment, not your tattoo falling out.
4. Do not pick it. Do not scratch it. Do not peel a flake that is still attached. A flake pulled early takes pigment with it and leaves a pale patch that has to be gone over again. If it itches, and it will, press a clean hand flat against it.
5. Keep it out of standing water. No baths, no swimming pools, no hot tubs, no lakes, no ocean, for two weeks minimum. Showers are fine and encouraged. Do not let the shower beat directly on it.
6. Cover it from the sun rather than sunscreening it. Sunscreen goes on skin, not into an open wound. Until the surface has closed, the shade is a sleeve. After that, see below.
7. No gym and no heavy sweating for the first three to five days. Sweat is salt water in an open wound, and gym equipment is shared.
8. Wear clean, loose cotton over it. Anything tight, synthetic or heavily dyed will rub, and dye can transfer onto broken skin.

[ art 02]

care-02-flake-stage.png
Alt: The same tattoo around day six, mid-flake, dry flakes lifting with black pigment visible in them.
Shot close and dry, no ointment shine. This is the stage people panic about.

Weeks two to four

1. The surface closes in about two weeks. It will look finished before it is.¹
2. It goes dull and slightly cloudy around week two to three, sometimes called silver skin. It looks as though the colour has gone milky. It has not. That is a new layer of surface skin sitting over the ink, and it clears.
3. Moisturise daily with a plain fragrance-free lotion until it stops feeling tight, then keep going anyway.
4. Do not judge the tattoo until three months. Nothing gets touched up before then, because the skin has not finished deciding.

The sun, for the rest of it

Ultraviolet light breaks pigment molecules apart, and the fragments are small enough for the cells holding them to carry away.² That loss is cumulative and it does not come back.

So: once the surface has closed, SPF 30 or higher, every time, forever. A tattoo kept out of the sun stays sharp for decades. One that is not, does not. Of everything on this page, this is the part that never stops mattering and the part you control most. How a tattoo works has the mechanism.

When to call, and who to call

Any of the first five below is a same-day matter for a doctor or urgent care, not for a tattooer.³ Go to them first. Tell us afterwards so we know.

• Pain, redness or swelling that is getting worse after day three rather than better
• Skin that is hot to the touch
• A red line or streak spreading away from the tattoo toward the rest of your body
• Thick yellow or green discharge, as distinct from clear or straw-coloured plasma, which is normal
• A fever
• A rash of small bumps, or intense itching in one colour only, which can be a reaction to a particular pigment rather than an infection

For anything else, or for a second opinion on whether it is anything: call the shop, 503 927 9828, or reach us the way you booked. Do not post a photograph somewhere and wait for replies.

What we can and cannot tell you

We are tattooers. We can tell you how a healing tattoo behaves, because we have watched thousands of them. We cannot diagnose anything and we will not try. If something looks like it belongs to a doctor, we will say so and mean it.

Tell us before we start, not after, if any of these apply to you: blood thinners, immunosuppressants, isotretinoin (Accutane), diabetes, pregnancy or breastfeeding, or a history of keloid scarring or eczema.

Footnotes

1. The day counts on this page are what we see across thousands of healing tattoos, not a clinical finding, and they move with placement, skin, and how much work was done in one sitting. The shape underneath them is standard wound healing: an inflammatory phase, then new tissue, then months of remodelling. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Pigment sits in the dermis inside macrophages, immune cells that release it when they die and hand it to their replacements. Shown in mouse skin by Baranska et al., Journal of Experimental Medicine 215(4), 2018. ↩

3. Those are the standard warning signs of cellulitis, a spreading bacterial infection of the skin. NHS, cellulitis. ↩