tattoo thread

[MaxOfMetal]

My after care is always what my artist would tell me to do. Nobody and I mean NOBODY would tell me the same thing. My first tat will need a few touch ups because I naively listened to a few collegues who told me I wasn't using enough cream.

Everyone's skin has different needs, you just have to listen to your body. If it's too dry, moisten. If it's too wet, wash it off.

It's not rocket science though. You destroy the top layer of skin to put ink underneath and the goal is to keep the ink in place while letting your top layer heal well enough to not obscure the ink.

 

[MFB]

For those who have done saniderm, how'd it hold up with sweat/working out? I've been going back to the gym and while weights don't get me too grimy, when I do my runs I'm hitting 4 to 5 miles in roughly 30-45 minutes, which does get a nice sheen going on the ol' arms. I assume since it's all trapped underneath it wouldn't be a big deal since it has nowhere to go, it would just sit under the wrap and get rehydrated, but just curious.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

For those who have done saniderm, how'd it hold up with sweat/working out? I've been going back to the gym and while weights don't get me too grimy, when I do my runs I'm hitting 4 to 5 miles in roughly 30-45 minutes, which does get a nice sheen going on the ol' arms. I assume since it's all trapped underneath it wouldn't be a big deal since it has nowhere to go, it would just sit under the wrap and get rehydrated, but just curious.

It depends on the location. Anything with a joint is going to suck. If you sweat a lot it's going to be gross when you remove the bandage.

You only wear the thing for about a week, skip the gym if you can.

 

[MFB]

You only wear the thing for about a week, skip the gym if you can.

That's looking like the plan, I tend to go every other or every third day so it's only a few workouts to miss; just one of those things I hate where just when I was getting in to a routine, something comes up and throws it off a little bit longer.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

That's looking like the plan, I tend to go every other or every third day so it's only a few workouts to miss; just one of those things I hate where just when I was getting in to a routine, something comes up and throws it off a little bit longer.

You could give it a shot. Worse case scenario you just replace the bandage. The most important time period is the first 24 hours, after that you can be much more whatever about it.

 

[MFB]

New piece is done, turns out he does a similar process to Saniderm except it's called Recovery Derm, goes on super thin and aside from the little bubbles from rotating/flexing, you can barely tell it's there.

He ended up having to reschedule for today, which was totally fine as I was already a little nervous from not feeling 100% after seeing my family the day before (which turned out to just be residual exhaustion from my family). Got in there, banged out the line work in like an hour or so, and then the color took another two or so, so all said and done we came in an hour under what we thought it would take - and two hours under what we booked for in case it needed longer. But hey, I'll take shaving an hour or two off instead of needing an extra hour or two. Apparently my skin is great for tattooing, takes the inks really well which saved him the trouble of needing to do multiple passes for linework and shading, so that's neat.

I'm wrapped up from now until Friday night, but he said I could also give it until Saturday morning since we finished so late, which is what I plan to do. Then from there, it's just typical treatment of wash/pat dry/lotion as needed, etc... I'll post pics in the next day or so when he drops them on line as they're better than whatever I could take

 

[MFB]

Morning #1 - this thing looks like it wept like a son of a bitch while I slept, and all the endorphins I had seem to have run out so the pain is now present There's definitely some initial 'sticker shock' having never done a wrap recovery, and it made me initially nervous but I'm trusting in the process; I can also guarantee that it looks worse than it is by the very nature of the wrap, it's whole point is to keep everything in, so it's all just caked on top of each other instead of letting me slowly clean that off as it's exposed.

 

[Charlie Foxtrot 3rd]

These plus my stomach and my right quad which I don’t have decent pictures of. Been at it 20 years, no where near done. No advice, everyone’s tattoo journey is their own. Have a nice day.

 

[lelandbowman3]

Morning #1 - this thing looks like it wept like a son of a bitch while I slept, and all the endorphins I had seem to have run out so the pain is now present There's definitely some initial 'sticker shock' having never done a wrap recovery, and it made me initially nervous but I'm trusting in the process; I can also guarantee that it looks worse than it is by the very nature of the wrap, it's whole point is to keep everything in, so it's all just caked on top of each other instead of letting me slowly clean that off as it's exposed.

It's definitely going to weep, but that's ok. Like I mentioned, it's all sterile lymphatic fluid, which will actually help heal and keep the tattoo moisturized. If the seal breaks, you'll need to wash and re-apply the bandage. Also, it all really depends on how your body heals. You don't want to remove the bandage too early because the skin you're growing will be super thin and easily irritated.

REMOVING THE BANDAGE:
make sure that you're pulling parallel with your skin, and not back, up, or away from the bandage. It comes off pretty easily this way, and there's no damage to the skin. I'd recommend doing it right after a nice, warm shower, that way your skin is nice and soft from the water and it should release a little easier.

 

[MFB]

Yeah, across definitely seems like it'd be the less painful/tedious of the two instead of rolling/peeling it down the entire way. There's a small portion that bubbled that first night and some leaked out but I just patched it up and haven't seen any issues since; thankfully it was just blacks too, so if it needs a punch in at that one spot it's truly not a big deal and I wont even sweat it (its the outline at the top of the piece, on something that's also just fluff).

I've still got another two full days of it being under wraps, not taking this bad boy off till Saturday morning.

 

[MFB]

There's a few spots where the ink under the wrap looks like it's dried up and cracked/split, safe to assume that's normal? I'm not that worried about it, not enough like I'm going to pull the wrap off and immediately assume the worst, just hadn't seen it until earlier today.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

There's a few spots where the ink under the wrap looks like it's dried up and cracked/split, safe to assume that's normal? I'm not that worried about it, not enough like I'm going to pull the wrap off and immediately assume the worst, just hadn't seen it until earlier today.

If it looks like a crackle guitar finish its totally normal.

 

[MFB]

Wrap is off, did a quick wash and air dry before applying lotion, still looking sharp as shit. Taking that off was quite terrifying as some ink is still caked on, and I didnt want to scrub too hard tonight to get it off, but I'll give it a bit more tomorrow morning to get it all off. The worst part right now is just the stickiness at my inner elbow from one of the wraps, just won't wash off.

 

[MFB]

Alright, so this dude is pretty healed, minimal flaking/peeling at this point. Probably won't need lotion more than once a day after this weekend (I'm doing it once in the morning and right before bed at the moment), so I think pics are in order.

My Kezia inspired, neo-traditional color tattoo

 

[lelandbowman3]

Right on dude! Glad it worked for you! I'm 100% a believer in using this method to heal my tattoos from here on out.

 

[MFB]

Yeah, I was in a terrible mood from work when I took the wrap off, so I was even more nervous than the days before; but once I started taking it off I could breath easy. There was some caking that first day that required a little bit of elbow grease to get off, but honestly, the convenience of the wrap is unbeatable.

Some spots still seems a little heavy and raised, not sure if just that much ink went in there and its the end result or maybe just my dumb skin underneath. It's pain free to touch it now, and thankfully also getting to be itch free - forgot how much these fuckers itch during the healing between hair regrowth and skin healing, etc.

 

[SCJR]

I have two, they're not big but not small. Not cheap or poorly done at all.

I regret the f*** out of them.

 

[thrsher]

I have two, they're not big but not small. Not cheap or poorly done at all.

I regret the f*** out of them.

why do you regret them?

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I wouldn't say I regret my first tattoo, but I wouldn't get it again. It's slated for cover-up but I'm not in a hurry. Lesson: don't get tattoos that have to do with people you might not fuck with later in life, be they friends, lovers, or bands you adore.

This is my most recent. Full disclosure, this started life as a simple wedding band tattoo, then I got divorced. Whoops. Lesson not learned I guess. I made a full recovery though both mentally and aesthetically and am super pleased with the recontextualization:

 

[CanserDYI]

I got a funny tattoo story. My friend owns a tattoo studio here in town, I went and got a cover up of an old ex's name and picked out this really sick crows head with arrows coming out the bottom, I usually don't do an artist's flash tattoos, but this one really spoke to me for some reason.

Me and him go outside and smoke a blunt together, and go inside and I lay down and he starts. It's on the back of my arm so I can't really see what he's doing.

Fast forward an hour later and dudes like "okay all done....oh yeah I added a snakes tongue to the crow cause I thought it'd be rad."

I shot up so fast and hit the mirror and luckily, he was right. It looked sick. Next words out of my mouth, " dude. You really are so lucky that's badass, cause I was about to knock you out" we both laughed and went out and finished the blunt. Now I have a funny tattoo story.