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10 Skin Care Tips for Tattoos
Skin Care - Tattoos
Tattooed skin is just as prone as regular skin to develop acne, skin tags, and warts.

Here are a 10 tips to help you avoid and treat skin care problems with your tattoos.
  1. Wax. Depending on where you get your tattoo, the tattoo artist will shave the area. If you are getting a tattoo on a hairy area, get it waxed professionally. This is good advice especially if you are getting a leg or ankle tattoo. Professional waxing usually has less of an occurrence of ingrown hairs.
  2. Find a good dermatologist. A good tattoo costs too much money to let a pimple or wart in the middle of your design cause a blemish spot that will require a tattooist to retouch. Especially if it is a small tattoo design. Have the dermatologist treat the acne or wart. It will cause fewer problems as it heals.
  3. Have your skin tags and warts removed before you tattoo. They grow, and if you have a tattoo design with a small skin tag or wart, it will become a tattoo design with a large skin tag or wart. Take care of it while it’s still a small problem.
  4. Skin that has not been tanned takes a better tattoo than skin that has been tanned. Stay out of the sun before you get a tattoo.
  5. Stay out of the sun or use a SPF30 sun block or a sunscreen after you get a tattoo. The sun causes your tattoo to blur over time. Which is why sun lovers have such bad tattoos after a few years.
  6. Immediately after getting a tattoo, avoid getting the tattoo wet. Don’t shower until your tattoo artist has said it is safe. For the two to three week healing period after getting a tattoo, avoid pools and stay out of the ocean. The chlorine and salt water will leach the color out of your tattoo as it is healing. Remember, at this point it’s still an open wound.
  7. Never scratch a healing tattoo. You’ll damage the healing skin, and your nails carry bacteria that could potentially infect that area.
  8. While “tramp tags” or lower back tattoos are popular, have you ever thought about how you will apply AD&D ointment to it while it is healing? Before you get a lower back tattoo, arrange for a friend, significant other or even your Mom to help you apply whatever ointment your tattoo artist has recommended. Remember, this has to be done several times a day.
  9. Get touch-ups every 10 years or so to keep your tattoo looking crisp and clean.
  10. Tattoo removal usually causes scarring. Think before you get a tattoo. The tattoo design you pick today, will be with you the rest of your life. So if you choose a pot leaf to be cool or some trendy design (remember the barb wire craze) you’ll be stuck with that design when you’re in your thirties and a PTA member.
A good tattoo will last you a lifetime if you choose your design wisely and take care of it properly.

Denise Long is the author of Before You Tattoo and regularly contributes articles on Beauty Tips to 30 Days to…Improve Your Life.