Be Safe About Getting Tattoos

Be Safe About Getting Tattoos!

You’ve finally decided to jump on in and test the waters. You are getting a tattoo! Where do you go? Maybe you have a couple of tats already but they are starting to look old and faded. That biker dude at the convention seemed to know what he was doing, or so you thought! Regardless, there are some important things that you should know about before agreeing to let someone else permanently tattoo your flesh. You need to know about the safety ropes before jumping into that tattoo parlor chair. Even with the biggest of the bad tattoos, you need to follow simple safety measures if you want to have success.

The first thing that you will want to know is will it hurt? Well, yes, of course it will but not too much. Some people say it feels like a bee sting on a sunburn. Personally, it did not bother me much at all. Everyone is different and it depends on what part of the body you are having tattooed.

Naturally, tattooing involves needles. Who do you trust enough with sticking a needle in you? Your Doctor, right? Who else do you trust? How about that over-grown hippie at the fair? Do you trust him? How about your big brother’s best friend out of his basement? Do you trust him? No, you should not trust either of them. Are they trained to tattoo you? Probably not, so other than a Doctor and someone trained like a tattoo artist, you should not trust them at all if you want the best result. The only people that you should trust are those properly trained in good needle hygiene. No one else.

Scope out your tattoo studio. You want to make sure everything is on the up and up. You want to be sure the studio and artists are clean. The artists might look super cool in how they dress with lots of piercings and body art, but if they don’t look clean, don’t give them another thought. Just walk away.

Choose your tattoo artist carefully. This is a serious decision. Ask questions if you want. Ask about their training and background. Ask about how they are safe and clean and any other questions you want to ask. If you don’t feel that you can comfortably ask questions, turn on your heels and go somewhere where you will feel comfortable asking questions. Look around and be satisfied that this tattoo studio is every bit as clean and safe as your own Doctor’s office.

Specific things to look for when scoping out a good tattoo studio:
1.    Ask if they use a brand new sterile needle every time.
2.    Ask if all other tools that are involved in the tattooing process are either sterilized or disposable (and, of course, are they either sterilized or disposed of after each customer?)
3.    Is everything personally laid-out for your tattoo? You don’t want to share in a big communal bottle of ink with your fellow tattoo-lovers; you want little individual disposable containers of ink just for you. Latex gloves. Vaseline should be dispensed with disposable instruments – not by hand. Insist on this!
4.    Insist on having non-disposable equipment sterilized with an autoclave (an apparatus which uses superheated steam under high pressure to sterilize instruments), not an ultra-sonic cleaner or a dunk in a tub of rubbing alcohol. Ask the tattoo artist if his autoclave is FDA-regulated. Anything else should be unacceptable to you.

The majority of good tattoo artists maintain spotlessly clean and scrupulously hygienic studios. Just be sure to find yourself one and don’t settle for anything less.