Good looking tattoos on our skin tend to attract a lot of attention. That is what we want, isn’t it. We want to be unique and we want to be noticed. Choosing the right tattoo design with the right color scheme can be time consuming and expensive. After we’ve inked, we want the tattoo to last for a number of years and maintain its vibrancy. What are good tattoo care practices to maintain healthy looking tats? Read on …

The following are a few important steps you should take as a good tattoo care practice:

Keep Tattoo Dry

As soon as you’ve got your tattoo, remove the bandage at home and wipe off the ointment and oozing body fluid with a tissue. This is important to prevent dead cells from accumulating, sticking and drying on the surface of the tattooed area. Remember, DO NOT wash the tattooed area. Washing may lead to infection due to bacteria in water.

Apply Ointment Regularly

Apply a thin layer of A&D ointment, Bacitracin, or comparable product on your fresh tattoo. Make sure you are not allergic to any of the product. In fact, product selection is not really important. The key to good tattoo care is to apply the ointment CONSISTENTLY.

Do Not Expose Tattoo To Sunlight

Keep out of direct sunlight. Exposing your new tattoo to the sun is not a good idea. Sunlight may cause swelling of redness on the tattoo. If you really have to go outdoor, apply a layer of moisturizing sunscreen with Sun Protection Factor (SPF) 20 or above on the tattoo.

Good tattoo care is always a smart thing to do if you want to maintain the sharpness and the vibrancy of the tattoo. Most people do not bother, and they end up with ugly looking tattoo after a period of time.

Here are some statistics about the tattoo industry in the United States. According to U.S. News & World Report, tattooing has become one of America’s fastest growing categories of retail business. There are an estimated 15,000 tattoo studios in operation. It is also estimated that at least one new tattoo studio opens for business everyday somewhere in the country.

Harris Poll has conducted a survey in the summer of 2003. The results were pretty amazing! There are approximately 15% of Americans (or about 40 million people) have at least one tattoo on their body. Back in 1936, there were only 10 million Americans with body tattoo or approximately 6% of the population. The number of people with tattoo in the United States has almost tripled in a span of 60 years. To break it down even further, 16% of American males has tattoo and about 15% of American women has at least one tattoo.

Harris Poll also revealed that 83% of people that got a tattoo had no regrets on their choice to get a tattoo, while 17% said they did regret having chosen to get a tattoo. Those that regretted getting a tattoo, 16% said it was because of a person’s name being the tattoo, or being included within the tattoo.

What does all this figures mean to someone who is planning to get a tattoo? Avoid getting the name of a person as your body tattoo! You may be in love with your partner right now, and you think by tattooing their name on your body is a way to prove your love. That may be a mistake. You do not know what will happen 2 or 5 years down the path. You may have a new partner. Imagine the pain you have to go through to remove the old tattoo from your skin. Stick to graphics or abstract design if you are planning to get a new tattoo. Spend some time browsing on the right tattoo design before you ink.

As with any type of body modification or anything involving needles there are some risks of infection. Luckily, with proper research and picking a clean shop the rate if tattoo infection is very minimal. No one wants to spend hundreds of dollars on an infection, let alone have a resulting tattoo that just doesn’t look right because it got infected, so what are the things you can do to minimize the risk of tattoo infection?

First make sure you choose a clean shop to get your tattoo done at. You don’t want to go to some back alley dirty shop, this is almost a guarantee of infection.

You want one that is clean and uses proper sterilization methods. Take your time in choosing the shop. You want to find a high quality one that adheres to safety codes. You want a shop that uses new needles with each customer and is very careful about any form of transfer, by using sterile gloves and all the like.

The last thing you really want to be doing is spending hundreds of dollars that are literally being thrown away, or worse yet throwing your own life a way by catching a disease. A little extra time ensuring the shop doing your tattoo is clean and infection free can save you a whole lot of trouble and money in the end.

Another key part in preventing infection is in your after care. Follow what the artist has set out for you very carefully. Don’t remove your gauze too early and ensure any time you touch your tattoo that your hands are clean and free of dirt which can lead to a problem.

So what if it is too late to learn what you should have done and you already have an infected tattoo, what then? Well first step is to let the tattoo shop know that you have gotten a tattoo infection. Do not place blame it could very well have been improper care or even a slight allergic reaction that caused the infection.

The next step is to go to the doctors. They may test you for other diseases in the case that the shop you went to was a less than sterile one, otherwise you will simply be given an antibiotic to help clear up the infection. Sometimes the tattoo is fine, due to the fact the infection was caught quickly, other times it is not.

Tattoo infections are few and far between but the more research you do and the more careful you are in getting your tattoo and the after care of your tattoo the better your chances are of minimizing your tattoo infection rate.

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