There are many, many house remedies and old tales about how to heal a tattoo; but this quick guide will answer all your questions on how to most effectively heal you new tattoo.
First of all, size matters. Depending on the size as well as the details of your tattoo the time to heal will take longer.
Your skin feels stress too and in this case the bigger the tattoo, the bigger the stress we expose the skin to.
With this guide we will go through the process of healing a tattoo in 30 days, you will be surprise how easy can be!
Size Matters, biggest the tattoo bigger the skin stress.
Day 0
After your first session, the tattoo artist will wrap your new piece with plastic film so when it doesn’t make contact with other surfaces. It cant get sweaty but thats fine you are going to wear it just a few hours or until you can clean your tattoo.
Cleaning your tattoo is super important but being clean while doing it, its as important. Wash your hands thoroughly and dry them with paper towel.
While you are removing the bandage you could see some fluid, remember a tattoo it’s pretty much an open wound, so that fluid is a combination of ink, blood and plasma. Your skin is going to be sore and potentially red, depends or the sensitiveness of your skin.
With your cleans hands, wash your tattoo with warm water and fragrance free soap. DO NOT use washcloth to dry it as this can harbor bacteria.
After cleaning your new tattoo, let it breath, rest and try to expose it the least time possible to sun. You can put some cream but its mandatory to be fragrance free and for very sensitive skin.
| TO DO | NOT TO DO |
| Clean with wash hands | Don’t use fragrance soap |
| Use paper towels to dry | Don’t us Washcloth |
| Let the skin rest and breath | Do not touch the scabs |
First Week
During this time your tattoo would have a duller and cloudy appearance. You will also notice scabs forming, this is because your skin is healing. DO NOT touch the scabs
During this first week it’s important to wash your tattoo once or twice a day and apply some cream. While washing the tattoo, you might notice some ink running, this is totally fine, is just excess ink that’s coming up through your skin.
The redness and soreness of the skin should be fading out during this week.
Second week
You are already half way! But we have to still be careful. Normally, is at this time when tattoos get more itchy. Don’t touch it, scabs will fall naturally and you can deal with the itchiness applying itch relieve cream.
If at this point the tattoo is still considerably red and swells, contact your artist back so we can see the status of it.
Last 2 weeks
During this stage of healing, most of the big flakes will be gone and the scabs should be going away. You might still see some dead skin, but it should eventually clear up too. The tattooed area might still look dry and dull. Start using any regular moisturizer until the skin looks hydrated again.
Think of a tattoo like an onion, it has layers, the outer layers of skin should have healed by this time. It may take three to four months for the lower layers to completely heal. By the end of your third month, the tattoo should look as bright and vivid as the artist intended.