Tattoo Healing Advice
- Apr 19, 2025
- 3 min read
Essential Tips for Effective Tattoo Healing
Looking for healing advice for your new tattoo? Let’s make it simple, there’s a lot of different options online about this topic, so let’s make it more simple.
With over 10 years of experience and multiple clients with amazing results our team here at Yarson Tattoo know what we're talking about. Once you have your new tattoo, your artist will wrap you up in either cling film or a tattoo pad to leave the studio.
Please make sure that you remove the pad once you get home. The new tattoo may feel a bit slimy when you take off the wrapping, that’s normal and to be expected. This is just blood and ink, nothing to worry about. Next you will need to wash your tattoo, be careful as the area will be tender to the touch. Using warm water, gently wash over the tattoo.
Once you have the area nice and clean take clean kitchen towels and pat dry.
Note: do not use bath towels to do this, you can introduce bacteria to the area which can lead to infection. If you will be staying at home, leave the tattoo uncovered. We want the skin to breath as much as possible and to dry out the area.
Tattoo Healing Advice When Leaving The House
If you have to leave your home you must wrap your new tattoo again. We always suggest getting tattoo armour pads, which we sell here in the studio. These pads help the tattoo breath even when covered, keeps the area dry and does not slip around or leak like cling film.
You will also need to wrap your new tattoo when going to bed at night. When you wake up, you will remove the pad, wash, dry and let air out again.
Every time you leave the house or go to bed, a new pad must be used. The area must be washed and dried each time. You will continue this for the first three days of the healing process.
Do not apply cream to the new tattoo until the 4th day! Cream is to help hydrate the dry skin, if you use cream before the three days are over you are more prone to infection. This is due to the pores being open on the skin and absorbing the cream. You will keep hydrating the new tattoo for the next seven days, your skin will start to peel over the course of these days. This may look similar to a sunburn peeling. Do not pull, pick or scratch the area, we know it’s hard but it’s for the best healing. The peeling phase should be small flakes and not large scabs. If you see scabs contact your artist on advice on what to do. Once the peeling has stopped, you can then go back to your regular lotions. A new tattoo takes a full four weeks to heal. After two weeks, you can return to the gym, swimming and normally activities, but no sun exposure! When going into the sun we need at least four weeks post tattoo otherwise the area can burn and damage the skin and tattoo. When in the sun SPF 50 must be used, this stops your tattoo fading.
For further tattoo advice, please consult your tattoo artist.
