You leave with this on paper. It is also here so you can read it at 2am on day six when the itch starts and you want to know that is normal.
What each stage looks like, so you can tell an ordinary heal from one worth a phone call.
The film stays on until you are somewhere clean. Fluid collecting under it looks alarming and is completely normal.
Clean hands, lukewarm water, unscented soap, no cloth. Pat dry with kitchen paper, not a bath towel. A thin balm layer after.
Wash twice a day and moisturise thinly. The skin feels tight and looks slightly dull. This is the stage people panic about and should not.
Flakes come off in the shower on their own. Do not help them. Scratching now is how you lose line work.
A cloudy layer over the tattoo as the new skin settles. It clears on its own. Keep moisturising and stop worrying.
Colour and contrast come back up slowly. Judge nothing before three months.
One free touch up visit for anything that healed unevenly. Booked as a real appointment.
Two weeks of small discipline decides how the next twenty years look.
Clean hands first, unscented soap, lukewarm water, pat dry. Thirty seconds each time.
A film you can barely see, twice a day. Thick cream traps moisture and softens the ink.
No baths, pools, hot tubs or open water for two weeks. Showers are fine, kept short.
No direct sun for a month and never pick a flake, however loose it looks. Both cost you detail permanently.
Heat radiating from the tattoo, redness spreading outward past the edges, yellow or green discharge, or a fever. Any of those, call the studio on (503) 555 0177 the same day.
Yes. The colour you see in the sink is surface ink coming away with dead skin. What is under it is untouched.
Light movement straight away, heavy sweat after five days, and nothing that drags a gym mat across it for two weeks.
Keep it covered for a month, then use factor 50 on it for life. Sun is the one thing that ages a tattoo faster than anything we can fix.
The first one inside twelve months, yes. Book it after the three month mark so we are looking at a settled piece.
Consults run forty minutes and cost nothing. Come with references, a rough placement, and a budget range. You leave with a date, an artist, and a price band.
