TreeHugger

Is there any suggested permanent aftercare to help keep your tattoo healthy other than using sunscreen? would have posted this in the aftercare section but i can't.

Thank you so much for the replies! I'm happy to be seeing that i am just over analyzing it, i was hoping that was the case :)

5 weeks ago i got this tattoo, pretty happy with it overall, i gave him what i wanted and he put it together very nicely. BUT there are a couple things that i'm not finding answers about, and it may just be part of the healing process underneath the top layers of skin, i might need to find a new artist, or it might be completely normal XD This tattoo was for my almost 3 year old daughter, who loves flowers and butterfly's, and has adored my tattoo from the day she saw me with the bandage around my forearm and knew it was the tattoo i had been telling her i was going to get. I have 2 other small tattoo's to potentially compare it but 1 is on the back of my neck and i barely ever see/saw it, the other is from when i was 16 (14 years ago) and neither of them really mean anything to me and i have forgotten about them on and off since i got them so i have never really looked at them extensively. I've been a little worried also that maybe i didn't take care of it right, maybe i put too much Aquaphor on it at a time or maybe i rubbed the Aquaphor or lotion too roughly and the skin flaking off while i moisturized wasn't ready to come off and was taking ink with it. Or maybe it got too much sun and faded out, after the 2nd day it wasn't in direct sun but i had to drive home from work in the sun, but i kept the sun off of it during the drive, it did get maybe 30 minutes of direct sunlight the first couple weeks, not for longer than 5-6 minutes at a time, though i was outside using shadows to shield it a couple times for maybe 20 minutes at a time but no sun was directly on it, not sure if indirect light can still have the same effects. I'm by no means unhappy with it, i love it, and it means a lot to me which is why i'm so concerned. I still have a lot of work that i want done on and around it, i'm leaning toward a koi fish (another thing that my daughter loves) sleeve with a koi fish on the outside of my forearm and another koi fish swimming underneath this tattoo. And like i said, this tattoo means a lot to me and i'm not sure if the things that are bugging me mean i need to find a new artist, if its just part of the process, maybe i did something to it during healing, maybe too much sunlight, maybe the ink just didn't hold very well, so i turn to you fine people ^_^ Any help would be appreciated :) This may all just be a case of me being only inches away from it and able to see every imperfection but i would like your opinions. Much of the lettering has a look almost like brush lines instead of being solid black, with a lot of the tighter lettering area's not being filled at all. brush line look (the camera didn't pick them up very well but they look like wavy black lines) tight lettering area not filled, there are several areas like this wing edges look patchy and almost gray in some spots looks like color has bled out of the lines in several areas, this being the worst, camera did a bad job, not sure if you can see it, 2 humps starting about halfway up the left side of the "L", it's probably really only noticeable to me and the other instances are along the thing lettering outline and just makes it a bit fuzzy .