Spandoria

Hi, so I have an old tattoo that I'm pretty sure I have an allergic reaction to. A couple times a year for up to a week at a time it gets really raised and itches quite a bit. It's also a pretty old shitty tattoo that I was planning on getting lasered and covered in the future. But I really don't want to have to deal with it long term. I was wondering if laser potentially helped with these symptoms or what other options I'd have to get rid of these symptoms. I'd also like to note that it isn't too severe or anything, just a slight annoyance whenever it occurs. Nothing crazy like chronic pain caused by it.

So most of the tattoos I have are black and grey. My arms are sorta a traditional black and grey style and my back is a super dark realistic piece. My chest is also a traditional style black and grey and my stomach is lettering. So most of my stuff is black and grey, but I kinda like color, do you think it would be weird to now start doing my sides and legs in a neo traditional style?

So whenever I get a tattoo on my torso I end up getting quite a bit of acne around the tattoos. I'd assume its from constantly applying moisturizer, It never has any overall problems on the outcome of the tattoo. My main problem is whenever a tattoo takes multiple sessions. I just got one a week about on my stomach and am scheduled to get the shading done in a week, however I have a bit of acne starting to form around it. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to properly moisturize my new tattoos while also preventing acne. If it helps my current aftercare routine is to wash it 3 times a day and apply either cetaphil or Lubriderm until it peels. Then once it does I tend to drop down to twice a day for the next week then I tend to treat it like any other tattoo.

So a couple of years ago I got a spider web tattooed on my elbow. I didn't really know about any of the things it was associated with and just thought it looked cool and was a nice gap filler. Recently I was thinking of getting it touched up and reworked a bit so I was looking up some ideas, when I ended up finding out more about it. Now I'm not really sure if it's good to keep. I still like it for the most part but wouldn't be apposed with covering it up with something else. Just looking for advice or what others think about it.

Hi, so I've been getting tattoos since I was 18. My parents have always not really liked them so I always kept them hidden. I only had them on my arms so I can easily hide them whenever I need to. At this point it's been a number of years and I've got both of my arms, my chest, stomach, and back. I want to eventually get more revealing tattoos like my hands and neck, but can't really hide those from my parents now can I? I'm kinda just wondering if anyone else has parents who aren't happy with their tattoos but still have a good relationship with them. I have a pretty good relationship with mine and I really don't want something like this to ruin it but at the same time I'm pretty addicted to tattoos and want to be completely covered in them in the future.

Thanks everyone! It was very helpful!

Hi so I'm trying to finish my sleeve, but I'm not super sure which direction I should go with it. I want to fill in a lot of the gaps and i'm not sure if I should fill them in with smaller individual pieces or keep goin with he flowers I already have and fill in all the gaps with flowers, vines, and leaves. Just kinda wondering what other people think about this to help me make a decision.

Hi, so I have a number of different pieces on one arm from a few different artists. I still have quite a few gaps and some of the pieces don't really flow together perfectly. So I wanted to ask an artist to just take over the rest of my arm and fill in the gaps and help the overall flow however they think would be best. Would that be weird? Or would it be totally fine?

So I've only been getting tattoos for the last 3 years or so, and in that time I've managed to pretty much completely fill both of my arms. I got my first tattoo in sorta a spur of the moment thing. I had tried to get it done numerous times before, but would constantly cancel my appointment due to nerves. However one day I finally said that this was enough, and just walked in to my local tattoo shop and got it done. At the time I never thought I'd even get another tattoo let alone a full sleeve or anything revealing. But as I'd imagine most people have felt, immediately after getting my first done I was hooked and just started getting more and more in more revealing places each time. And then I got stuck. At this point I had never gone more than a few months without getting a new adition. But I'm now running on 6 months since my last tattoo. It happened when I had just gotten my most revealing tattoo yet, "a couple of flowers on my wrist" and my artist asked me if I was planning on going any lower. I would have never even imagined doing something so crazy on my own, but after he mentioned it the ideas been haunting me ever since. As silly as this sounds, I have nights where I'm sleepless thinking of getting a tattoo on my hand. I've scrolled through thousands of photos of hand tattoos and with each one the urge has gotten stronger and stronger. It even got to the point where I broke and told my usual artist that I wanted it and booked an appointment and everything. But then once he put the stencil on it looked so beautiful, but before he started he took a break to smoke for a moment, and in that time I managed to psych myself out of it... After that. I didn't think of it for a number of weeks, but then eventually the thought has managed to pop back up in my head to the point where I'm obsessed about it now. It's to the point where almost everyday I pull out my pen and draw the stencil he had on myself. It looked so amazing, and it managed to tie all my other tattoos together in a way that just made everything look amazing. However the big thing drawing my back are my parents... My parents by all means do not like tattoos. And while living with them I managed to get a ton without them noticing. However getting one of the hand is kinda hard to hide from them, so it would make it kinda rough whenever I wanted to visit them. I guess I could always wear gloves or try and cover it with make-up whenever I plan on doing things with them, or at least until I feel comfortable revealing to them that I have tattoos. But that's pretty much the only thing holding me back, I have a pretty stable career in an environment that is completely fine with tattoos to whatever extent. And I don't even live with my parents anymore. It's kinda just that I'm scared of the day that they'll learn of my tattoos and how they'll react espeacialy to one thats so revealing. I don't even know what I'm really looking for here, possibly just someone to say "Yeah go do it!" or someone to somehow snap me out of my fanaticism.

For me personally, some reason whenever I get a tattoo I end up regretting it severely for the first couple of weeks. even if it's perfect and looks amazing. It's probably just from the shock of having some new on my body, but generally even if I don't really like how it ended up I end up liking it and accepting it after a few weeks. So my best advice is just to wait and hopefully you'll begin to accept it and love it.

Heyo, new to the LST and just forums in the first place. I've been getting tattooed for around 3 years now and have a number of them on both of my arms. I've never really known or talked to too many people who also have tattoos so I'm looking forward to the opportunity!