NJ INKWORKS
Tattoo Aftercare

Leave the bandage on your tattoo for 2-3 hours.  Wash your hands, remove the bandage and immediately wash the tattoo with lukewarm water and mild soap until your tattoo no longer feels slimy or glazed. Take care to remove all traces of blood as this can cause scabbing.  Let the tattoo AIR DRY (Do not use a washcloth on tattoo until it is completely healed.) DO NOT REBANDAGE!

Apply a very light film of Bacitracin or A&D ointment. Do NOT use Neosporin, or any other triple antibiotic ointment.  There are things in triple antibiotics that can damage your tattoo.  The tattoo should have enough ointment to make it look shiny.  Not “globbed” on.  This will allow the ointment to do its job while allowing the tattoo to breathe.  Too much ointment can also act like a magnet for dust, dirt and other nasty stuff that can promote infection.  Ointment should be applied three to four times a day for two to three days.  Then switch to a regular moisturizer like Keri, Lubriderm, or Aveeno Daily Moisturizer.  Do not use lotions that contain color or fragrance or sparkles until the healing is complete.

Wear loose clothing whenever possible to allow your healing tattoo to breathe.  If the tattoo is anywhere on the leg DO NOT wear stockings or pantyhose until your tattoo heals.  DO NOT SHAVE near or over your new tattoo for AT LEAST 14 days.

Your tattoo will heal very similar to bad sunburn and it is normal to see small flakes of colored skin falling off during this stage of healing.

DO NOT PICK OR SCRATCH YOUR TATTOO!!!!.  During the healing process your tattoo is going to itch…probably badly.  If you pick or scratch your tattoo you WILL mess it up!  Itching can be relieved by slapping or by washing and re-applying ointment (see above).  If your tattoo scabs DO NOT pick the scabs or you can destroy the ink and create scar tissue.

DO NOT soak or submerge your tattoo in water (bathing, swimming pools, oceans, seas, bays, rivers, streams, puddles, torrential downpours, unexpected flash floods, creeks, arroyos, brooks, channels, coves, estuaries, fjords,  gulfs, harbors, lagoons, rivers, lochs, swamps, bogs, wetlands, slip-and-slides, lakes, ponds or hot tubs, or moats) for at least 2 weeks or until healed.

If you tan, or will be in the sun for long periods of time, be sure to use a heavy sun block or cover tattoo. (Only AFTER tattoo has completely healed!).  Some good products are:

• Banana Boat for Kids - SPF 50.
• Banana Boat’s SPF 50, for Extra Sesitive Skin
• “Deep Cover” Super Sun block
• The Body Shop’s Watermelon Stick
• Bullfrog Moisturizing Formula - The Body Lotion (not the Gel Formula)
• Neutrogena’s Senisitive Skin SPF 17
• Schering-Plough’s “Shade Sunblock” in various SPFs.