Newbie

[Purplee Widow]

Hi just introducing myself. You can call me Purple. I'm not really sure what else to say here. I just got my first tattoo less than a month ago so I am a real noobie.

[Mark Bee]

Hi Purple.

[Purplee Widow]

Oh hai, Mark.

I could also mention I'm from Orange County! What other relevant info do you guys want? :)

[Tesseracts]

Oh hai, Mark.

I could also mention I'm from Orange County! What other relevant info do you guys want? :)

[Mark Bee]

Well played sir! Well played. I just read the tell-all book about The Room, by Greg Sestero (he played Mark). The 8 second scene you linked to above took close to 3 hours to shoot. One of the funniest books I've ever read.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh hai, Mark.

I could also mention I'm from Orange County! What other relevant info do you guys want? :)

What was your first tattoo? How was the experience?

[Purplee Widow]

What was your first tattoo? How was the experience?

so so so soooooo tragic. I spent 5 hrs in the chair almost and the artist gave me totally wrong care instructions so now I'm pretty much disfigured. Being my first tattoo i didn't know how fucking wrong this was. He told me wash it when I'm in the shower and do NOT put ANYthing on it, no ointment, no lotion, no oil. Seemed a little strange to me, so I even texted him for clarification, and he still said dont put anything on it. So I did that, the whole thing scabbed up, bled out took 2 weeks to heal and now looks like someone hit me in the leg with a baseball bat huge red and purple blured mess.. By the time i realized what was going on under that scab it was waaay to late to save it. Worst of all I texted my artist about it and his response was basically 'well you didnt listen to my instructions so its your problem now.' :[ I really don't know what to do about it other than cry for days. :/

[SeeSea]

Worst of all I texted my artist about it and his response was basically 'well you didnt listen to my instructions so its your problem now.' :[ I really don't know what to do about it other than cry for days. :/

What a dick. Well, there are several philosophies about healing a tattoo, and looks like this one didn't work for you. Sucks. Ask around here - you'll get recommendations for better artists. Is a cover-up a possibility?

[RoryQ]

He told me wash it when I'm in the shower and do NOT put ANYthing on it, no ointment, no lotion, no oil.

This isn't necessarily awful advice.

There is an aftercare school of thought that if you keep a tattoo clean and avoid picking, abrasion etc then it will heal fine. I haven't always used this method but when I have it hasn't caused any problems in the long term although heavier dryness or scabbing can be a feature.

Applying product of one kind or another can relieve a feeling of dryness / stretching and in some cases prevent heavy scabbing, but the flipside is some people invariably over-apply at first. A secondary argument is that every time you handle the tattoo and apply something there could be an issue if your hands aren't clean. Just keeping it to washing eliminated a lot of fingering.

If the tattoo really healed that badly then maybe the bigger issue is the ability of the artist versus the aftercare. If (if!) he was a complete butcher then no choice of aftercare would salvage it.

His response to you as quoted is undoubtedly poor. Vote with your feet and go elsewhere for a good cover-up.

[Rikhall]

A lot of artists I've been to have recommended not using ointment, Bert krak for example just told me to wash it regularly and let it breath and it came out perfectly, but everybodys skin is different and it sounds like he's a bit of a dick, it must be pretty big if you sat for so long? If it's so bad looking into laser removal it's expensive but well worth it

[irezumi]

I tried a dry heal a couple of times and they healed up perfectly fine. Just itchy as hell for me, more so than other heals. I still prefer what I've found works best for me.

[Mark Bee]

I'm sorry to hear you had a rough heal. I always use the dry heal method, to great success. I agree with @irezumi that it can get crazy itchy, but that has always been the worst of it for me. I wash my new tattoos in hot water and soap two or three times over the first two days. Then I leave it alone and forget about it, as best I can. The thinking behind the dry heal is that the human body is an amazing machine with fantastic ability to heal itself. For those of us that swear by the dry heal, we say get out of the way, and let your body do its work.

That said, each of us finds our own best way to heal, as no two bodies are the same. I encourage people to try different methods and stick with what works best for you. After your experience, I'd be tempted to avoid dry-healing. I hope you find the method that works best for you! There are threads here dedicated to this very topic.

Good luck!

[irezumi]

@Mark Bee I've tried about 20 ways to skin the cat; as a tattooer I should be familiar with as many methods as possible for the sake of relaying that to clients. Getting tattooed for the last 25 years has allowed me to try just about all of them. Yeah the worst of it was the itch; they healed great. The one I got from Ron Wells a bunch of years ago was the first one I tried it on and it looks just as good as any of my others. In fact I did it again a second time due to ease of traveling with a different one just a few months ago.

I've already found what works best for me a long time ago and I never tell that one to clients because most people are dumb and don't listen.

[Mark Bee]

@irezumi I agree. I guess each of us has to find our own method. And you're right. Many people simply wont listen. I teach english and history. I'm a professional writer. I earn my keep via teaching and writing. I spend hours trying to get my students to follow certain, basic steps, and invariably many chose to ignore me - then they wonder why they were not successful. You can lead a horse to water, right?

[Purplee Widow]

Well, I think it would be salvagable with a touch up. Whether I want to ask the same guy to do it or not is another question. It is an original peice of his art work, so I kind of wanted him to be the only one to work on it for that reason. It could probably be covered, but it's already a pretty big peice, and I LOVED it before it healed wrong.

so I'm pretty torn. Thanks for the input though guys. I had never heard of dry healing, so I'm glad to hear its a real think and hes not just a total hack.