keeping your tattooed skin healthy

I have some simple tips that will help keep your new tattoo looking fresh and radiant, and some helpful ideas to keep your older ones healthy. It is easier for me to give advice on this than take it for myself, but I hope to set a good example here. So I have been making an effort to preserve my tattoos and I have found some things that really work.

If you have a new tattoo, please follow or read the aftercare instructions I have on the blog here.

Once your tattoo is healed, hopefully, it will live happily ever after in your skin. With all the toxins going around in the world these days, your skin could be the first to react since it is the largest living organ on your body. (maybe your intestines are second? I'm not sure) So anyway back to skin, Always, always wear sunblock. This is important. When you are in the sun all day or even mild sun exposure, make sure to lube up with the sun block. It will keep your tattoos brighter, but since tattoo's that are colored or black, I think they attract more sun rays to your skin, doing more damage to it. It is possible to get skin cancer in your tattoo, so protect it. The best thing is to keep it covered with your clothes, but if that's not an option invest in a good sunblock.

Next, is if you have dry skin over or near your tattoo, which so many of us do, such as eczema,psoriasis, etc. you need to invest in a good lotion. There are some lotions that are awesome for this and I recommend Aveeno, or Curel which are not totally organic, but for all natural and organic spend the money on Alba. Its a blue and white bottle called very emmolient. If your tattoo is dry and itchy, the last thing you want to do is scratch all over the top of it shredding your top layers of skin. It can puff up the lines or various spots on the tattoo causing a raised effect that can come and go during the life of your tattoo. This also can happen due to sun exposure. Another possiblility to keep your skin nice is by taking supplements vitamin E or C. But you need to talk this over with someone to make sure that's the right supplement for you. You can also tone your skin with witch hazel. It's affordable and it works awesome.

Another thing is if you ever get a mosquito or other bug/spider bite or poison oak on a tattoo, the worse thing you can do is scratch at it and mess with it. You need to treat the bite and perhaps cover it and really work on getting it healed. This has happened to me before on my arm. I had gotten bitten and I scratched it and it made my tattoo blow up two inches around the bite. It really pissed off the tattoo. So be sure to treat that right away.

I hope you find this helpful, If you have any questions, or anything to add to this for that matter, please email me.

Thanks, and take care of your tattooed skin!