21stNow

What time is your tattoo? My job is about 10-15 minutes away, so I could meet you even if I don't get a tattoo!

I have a different take on this. First, it's a free country and you can do whatever you feel comfortable with in regards to this. My experience with getting tattooed at a convention is that I didn't really care for the children staring at me while I was getting a naked pinup tattoo on the inside of my thigh. Couple that with the weird positions that the male artist had to get into to do the tattoo on me (female) and it was just weird. I know that no one was doing anything wrong but I wouldn't choose to have children watching while a man is working between my legs. Hindsight is 20/20; I won't choose a tattoo with adult subject matter or in an intimate place if I ever get a tattoo at a convention again.

I just booked an appointment in March with Darnell Waine in Dallas for a back tattoo. It'll be a geisha-influenced portrait tattoo.

I suggest not to worry and just be prepared for either outcome. You could arrive and it turns out better than you expected or not at all what you expected. Don't be afraid to walk away; it's happened before and will happen again. Most artists have some level of flexibility with the design so if there are minor changes that will make the tattoo better for you, it shouldn't be a problem to work those in to the drawing before the stencil is made. Be willing to talk (and listen!) to the artist about what you do and don't like about the design. Take some time; don't just go with your initial impression of the drawing, both good and bad.

I won't comment directly on the price of the tattoo. I will say that Bethesda is one of the most expensive places in Maryland for anything, from renting an apartment to parking a car.

@sora777 I'm not familiar with Dermalize, so I can't comment on how similar it is to Saniderm. @LizBee You're welcome! Saniderm isn't stretchy or very flexible when you first apply it, but after it has been on and absorbed body heat, it is much more flexible. It did seem stretchy when I removed it in the shower. To finish my review of Saniderm, I'm at 2.5 weeks from the tattoo and am completely healed now. I had minor peeling from the day that I removed the Saniderm until about the two week mark. I also had a lot more itching than I normally do, since I started using Hustle Butter. At two weeks, I was almost completely healed. The only thing that I noticed at that point was that my skin still felt a bit tender. I would say that the healing time was cut down by a week from my normal healing time. What was unusual for me, both from my prior healing experiences with other methods and from what I have read in this thread, is that I did have scabs with this tattoo. I have never had scabs in a tattoo before. I did talk to my artist about it and we both thought that the scabs formed because the area bends and flexes (the area between my chest and shoulders). I don't have any other tattoos on areas that bend like this. Also, the scabs weren't bad and healed with no problems. Finally, the rash went away in about five days. I still plan to try Tegaderm next time, but am open to using Saniderm again.

I was another not-Friday-but-on-the-13th baby! I've thought about a Lucky 13 tattoo, but I don't think that I want to give the superstition any more attention than it already gets. I may change my mind on this soon, though.

Aww, I want the backs of my shoulders tattooed. It's not good to hear that those are some of the most painful places! I just did a partial chest tattoo and can agree that the sternum area is a hard one. I rank it as second worst behind lower back and slightly ahead of inner thigh. The pain on the sternum is compounded by the pressure from the artist making it hard to breathe while the artist is actually tattooing.

I must be one of those rare people without endorphins. If anything, it gets more painful as the tattoo goes along for me.

I wanted to share my experience with using Saniderm (8"x11 yd. roll) while healing the tattoo shown above. I got the tattoo on Saturday, finishing up on Saturday evening. The artist cleaned the area and applied the Saniderm at the shop. We used a piece on each shoulder, a piece in the middle and one piece on each side to connect the shoulder and middle areas. There were also cuts made to accommodate the curves of the skin in the middle of my chest. I left this bandage until Sunday evening (a little over 24 hours). There was some ink leakage. I immediately noticed that I barely felt any pain on Saturday night. Normally, I am sore in the tattooed area for about 30-36 hours after it is finished. I removed the first bandage in the shower. It was full of ink and came off as easier than I expected under warm running water. I placed the second bandage on after I got out of the shower and patted the tattoo dry. I didn't use any ointments or moisturizers. Monday, I felt great. Tuesday, I started to notice a smell (like the beginning of mildew growth) and also started to itch under the bandage. Wednesday, I tried to take extra care to pat the bandage dry once I got out of the shower. The scent was still there, but not quite as strong as the day before. The itching was getting worse, however. Thursday morning, I removed the bandage in the shower under running water. This hurt a bit more than the Sunday removal hurt, but it wasn't a high level of pain. There had been a small amount of ink leakage just about every day for the second bandage. I went on to use Hustle Butter three times on Thursday. I noticed around five small areas of peeling, but that was it. I feel some raised/somewhat hard areas in the outline of the flowers on my shoulders, but this is in line with what I normally feel on healing tattoos except when using normal methods, the raised areas are throughout the majority of the tattoo. I haven't had the flaking that I normally have during healing, so I think that I have skipped that stage. I have also noticed a rash (several bumps) in the middle of my chest. I hope that this heals soon! It is Friday now and I am still using Hustle Butter on the tattoo. I normally don't itch when I use Hustle Butter and don't use numbing gel during the tattoo. However, I do have some itching even after I removed the bandage and started the Hustle Butter routine. Overall, my pros would be that there was much less pain after the tattoo was over (big pro), I didn't have to tend to the tattoo throughout the first four days, and I didn't have to worry about ink stains on clothes. The cons would be the smell, the itch, the rash and how hard it is to get the edges to stay down on areas that bend or curve. I plan to try Tegaderm next time. I have the 4"x4" sheets of this already. Depending on how the rash heals, I may try Saniderm again if I don't see much of a difference between Tegaderm and Saniderm. Even with the cons, so far I think that this is better than what I was doing before.

Greetings from Maryland and welcome to LST!

What if it extends all the way across the lower bra line? Would you not consider that "under boob"? I get that the phrase sounds kooky though.

This was sad. My thoughts are with his family now.

Thanks for posting the link. It seems that people who use these products are doing it to have less scabbing. I don't scab with my tattoos as it is. Would the Tegaderm product still be advisable for me? It doesn't seem like it would cause someone who doesn't scab to start scabbing, but I don't know.

For those of you who use Tegaderm, do you apply it after you get home (after removing the artist's bandage) or does your artist apply it when he/she finishes the tattoo?

Thanks. Most of my tattoos are hidden well by clothes, so I haven't had the sun concern for those. I use a wristband for my wrist tattoo even for driving or short walks to lunch.

With one exception, I haven't had color come out of my tattoos during the healing process. I was wondering if there were any truth to claims by some tattoo ointment companies (Tattoo Goo being one of them) that the colors would stay vibrant longer after using their products. I haven't used Tattoo Goo specifically because it has artificial color in it. I don't have large complaints about the way that the color appears after my tattoos heal. Most colors outside of red are not going to show that well on my dark complexion. I just wanted to find out if there were any after care methods that can preserve color more than others.

Is there anything that can be done differently during healing to preserve the color in a tattoo? I know that there are products that claim to preserve color, but I'm wondering if there is anything special that can be done that really works. I would think that you would just want the healing process to be as normal as possible and to not have scabs that could come off and let the ink out of your skin. I wanted to see if I was missing anything and am looking for thoughts and opinions in this thread.