Ep. 69: Tattoo Care Nerd Out

This episode is equally meant for those who want to know the nitty gritty of tattoo healing and care and those who just like to hear me drone on in the background. 

Here I describe both, first,  what I call the old school traditional way of caring for a fresh tattoo and second, the wet method. 

I get into the products I like to have my clients use, including a deep dive into what Aquafor actually is and how it works so well, since it's not technically "moistizuring". 

I talk a lot about tegaderm/saniderm and what a reaction to these convenient first aid plastic films could look like. 

This episode is a bit nerdy, kinda long, and hopefully informative. 

Enjoy. You can find links to all of the products I talk about on my website's tattoo care section:
https://www.micahriot.com/tattoo-care-instructions/

You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/

Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
The podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but truly lives in the heart of Micah's website at:
https://www.micahriot.com/ink-medicine-podcast/

Transcript

Micah Riot: 0:30

Hello, hello, it's Micah Riot here. It's April 18th of 2024. Today I'm making episode 69, and I needed something straightforward today and something I've been thinking about making for a while, because it's going to be very useful to many new clients. Today's episode is about tattoo care. Every tattoo artist that I know has slightly different care instructions, and that is probably because we were all taught a little bit differently and then the practices we came to do for ourselves as we got tattooed and healed our own ink also diverged. As everyone's instructions for care are a little bit different, everybody's also convinced that theirs are the best, and my philosophy around it is that if you want me to give you care instructions, I'm happy to do so If you stick to mine, because that's the best option for you. But if you have tattoos from long ago, from before you were tattooed by me, and you have your own way of taking care of your tattoos and that works for you, it works well for you. You have products you like to use that are different from what I recommend. It's working for you. Keep on going. I do not insist that you take care of your tattoos exactly the way I say. If they were done by me. The end result is what matters to me.

Micah Riot: 1:50

Because this is a podcast episode, I'm going to go into two different methods of caring for your healing tattoo One that's going to be more traditional, more old school, more standard, and another one that is, I think, people have been using a bit for a bit less time. It's been talked about a little bit more. These days it's becoming more popular. The first technique we're going to call the traditional method or the old school method, and the second technique we're going to call the wet method. You could also hear them describe this wet and dry, but the first one isn't really dry. I mean, it's a little bit dry, it's a little drier, but it's not totally dry. So I would just refer to it as the old school, traditional method. Let's get to it.

Micah Riot: 2:37

So your tattoo care starts. Before you get the tattoo, you want to set yourself up for success and therefore, being in a good frame of mind, having slept, having eaten, not being under immense amounts of stress, not being near getting sick and not being near bleeding if that is something your body does these are all the things you can think about before setting up your tattoo appointment. Of course, sometimes you set it up and you have to wait a few months and circumstances change and life changes and you don't want to reschedule, you know, do your best. So you know, the more kind of neutral your body is at that point in time neutral to happy the better off you are. In time, neutral to happy, the better off you are. So the day of the tattoo you have snacks, you feel good, your blood sugar is nice, and even Right afterwards the tattoo. So your tattoo artist probably wrapped it up real nice, and put some perhaps sticky plastic on top of it, which is also called second skin, a tegaderm, a saniderm. Maybe they put saran wrap and some stretchy tape to hold it down, maybe it's a combination of saran wrap and that Maybe there's a plasma catching something inside, like a bandage of some sort inside the wrap. The tattoo artist wrapped you up. You should be feeling nice and secure, right. So your wrapping isn't coming off. It's going to last you for at least a few hours, if not overnight.

Micah Riot: 4:13

Go and have a nice meal. If you eat meat, some nice quality pastured, grass-fed meat is a good idea. Burger steak, sure you know meat is a good thing in this context. Like your body's releasing plasma, there was bleeding. It's a lot of energy for your body to get tattooed a lot of energy expenditure so you want to replenish it by getting some of that like nice protein, bloody protein back into your body. The reason why I think a burger or steak if you eat red meat is a good idea is because it's the most like our own flesh and I do believe that energetically and psychologically and in various ways, ayurvedically speaking, like goes with like, so things that are alike should go together right. So your body just went through a big process and you replenish it with a thing that's most like it. You can take that or leave it. It's just a little thing that I use as a tool. Then you go home and maybe you have a meal at home. So you're home.

Micah Riot: 5:22

You want to put on clothing that's going to make it easy for you to exist at home, so something very comfortable but isn't gonna expose the bandage or ride up on the bandage so that it doesn't so the edges of it don't start coming up, something like secure. You know, say, if it's on your thigh and you put on some leggings, like some soft but close to the skin leggings, that would be a good thing, kind of help hold it to your skin, help hold it together. You know, if it's your arm, maybe it's a long sleeve t-shirt, just something that's protective and soft and comfy, but also it's protective. It makes you feel kind of secure inside that piece of clothing. You know, if it's your torso maybe a tighter tank of some sort or a tighter t-shirt Then you're going to go to bed the next morning when you wake up.

Micah Riot: 6:05

This is where the old school method and the new school method are going to diverge. So the old school method, the traditional method of caring for your fresh tattoo, is that you're going to be getting in the shower, taking off the bandage and washing the tattoo with water that is hot if you can handle it, warm, if you can't handle the really hot, the really hot is going to make you a little sore. But there is a belief that getting the water really hot, as hot as you can handle it, will help the plasma clear out faster of your fresh tattoo and you want that. You basically want it to stop seeping and close up as soon as you can. You're going to wash it really well.

Micah Riot: 6:43

Use unscented soap. Dr Bronner's baby soap is one that I recommend, but there's other unscented soaps on the market. Liquid soap is better because it's fresh. It's not sitting around gathering bacteria or dust. So liquid soap, such as Dr Bronner's something mild, unscented Wash the tattoo really well, maybe even a couple of times with your hand, you know, no need to use anything because it's going to be pretty tender.

Micah Riot: 7:09

And if you have some kind of a soft washcloth you can do that too. But you can use your hand and just, you know a clean hand. Wash it off really well until you get all of the plasma, all the goo off that's kind of stuck to it and it should still feel somewhat slick to the touch, meaning it's still releasing plasma. It's not quite closed up, but as close as you can get it to clean as possible. So you wash it really well. Try not to get like shampoo or whatever on it from your hair If that's also something you're doing that day.

Micah Riot: 7:41

You get out, you pat it dry with a clean towel or even paper towels. You get out, you pat it dry with a clean towel or even paper towels. If you have that in your house, pat it dry, let it air out a little bit, just let it breathe for a second, maybe 10 minutes, 10-15 minutes. You just let it, let it be. It's gonna start to, it's gonna feel warm to the touch and it's gonna feel a little bit swollen still at that point. And you know, these, these things that I'm describing have more to do with a higher degree of coverage of ink in your skin than something that's small and just line work. Right, something that's really small, it just has line work. You'll feel some soreness, et cetera. But these instructions are not going to be as relative to that type of a tattoo, because you won't notice these things as much. So my instructions are more to do with tattoos that have more ink in your skin, that take a couple hours to do. Maybe there's coverage of color or shading.

Micah Riot: 8:38

So after you let it air out, you're going to take a little bit of Aquaphor. Aquaphor is something I recommend. It's one of the things I recommend. I like something thicker for that first few days to a week of caring for your tattoo. So you're going to take a little bit of Aquaphor from the jar or you can also use the kind that you spray on. They now have that. That's also very convenient and you put a little bit of Aquaphor in your tattoo and just you know about a pea-sized amount again depends on the size of your tattoo. Little goes a long way here. So you take it and you rub it across your tattoo and you rub it in kind of surrounding skin as well, gently but firmly, until it just feels a little tacky to the touch. You don't want to have a thick layer of Aquaphor sitting on top of your fresh tattoo. Reason being is that Aquaphor is essentially liquid plastic and you don't want it to cover up your pores to such an extent, to glop onto your pores, to such an extent that it won't let you tattoo breathe at all. So if you put it on in a thin layer, some of that water will get absorbed into your skin, some of it will evaporate, it will kind of rub away with your clothing and it will soon disappear. So it's not really plastic, but it has petroleum in it, right, which is a component of plastic.

Micah Riot: 10:00

Next day, micah here, I wanted to make a note about petroleum because, as I was editing this, didn't feel quite right to leave as is. So I went to Google and I looked up what is petroleum? And here's the answer Petroleum, also called crude oil, is a naturally occurring liquid found beneath the earth's surface that can be refined into fuel, A fossil fuel. Petroleum is created by the decomposition of organic matter over time and used as fuel to power vehicles, heating units and machines, and can be converted into plastics. And the next bit of that information that I feel like we were missing yesterday when I was recording this episode is this. So I typed in also what is petroleum in Aquaphor and such other products?

Micah Riot: 10:45

And the answer on Google is that the main ingredient in products like Aquaphor and Vaseline, petrolatum, is an emollient. Emollients moisturize the skin by forming an oily layer that traps moisture in the skin. Petroleum jelly products can prevent and treat dry skin, chafing and diaper rash and can be used in basic wound care. The next search that I did was to check if petrolatum and petroleum were the same thing, and here's the result of my search. The main difference between petroleum jelly and petrolatum is their purity level. Petroleum jelly is a mixture of semi-solid hydrocarbons that may contain some impurities, while petrolatum is a purified form of petroleum jelly that is free of impurities. And, as we already learned, petroleum, which is an unrefined version of petrolatum, is a derivative of the natural world, a product of organic matter decomposing, and it can become oil fuel for our cars, and it can also be a component of plastic making.

Micah Riot: 11:52

So there you go, if you wanted to know more about Aquaphor and how it works. It traps the moisture of your skin underneath the layer of it and kind of helps your body heal itself with its own moisture, its own methods. The reason why I think, uh, it's better if you don't mind it and if your skin is not sensitive to it, is because of that process, because your skin kind of heals itself from the inside out naturally and it keeps it supple because it sits on top of the skin as opposed to drying out. So when you just use a regular lotion the skin sucks it right up and then you are still dry and crackly and uncomfortable. You can't use enough lotion at that time when your skin is just intaking moisture. But Aquaphor, because it forms that protective layer, kind of keeps it supple. Still, okay, now onwards you want just a little bit, just a little bit of thin layer and then you're going to leave it be.

Micah Riot: 12:58

Keep in mind Aquaphor slash Petroleum will stain nicer clothing, so don't put on your nicest dress on top of that, or your nice linen trousers or your silk shirt. Be careful, right, because it's not going to be the ideal situation for a nicer piece of clothing. So if you have to go to work, choose clothing that you don't care as much about. Also, cotton, loose, breathable is all good options, right, the kind of most casual, clean, breathable clothes that you can do. For that you know at least that week, if not two, you know that's good.

Micah Riot: 13:31

The first day of the care of your tattoo is that what you do in the morning with the washing and the ointmenting, and then later in the day when you get home from work, wash it again. So wash it again with unscented soap, put a little bit of phenolate, breathe, put a little bit of Aquaphor on it, that's it. And you do that again and again for the first few days. And you know it kind of depends on your tattoo and how well you're healing and how fast it's going. But you're washing it a whole bunch for the first couple days while it's closing up and forming that like new skin layer and that kind of little bit of crust and a little bit of starts to slough off skin, right, old skin, like a burn, like a sunburn. So you're going to wash it, trying to get all the plasma off that it's still releasing plasma for the first, say, two days and you're going to wash it a few times during those days so that you can try to not get crusties right. The plasma is what is going to form the crust. And if you keep washing the plasma off and you don't let it form, you don't let it dry, it's not going to form the crust. And if you keep washing the plasma off and you don't let it form, you don't let it dry, it's not going to form the crust. So as much as you can wash it the first couple of days if you are working from home, if you are at home for the first couple of days, wash it more than twice a day, wash it three or four times a day. If you can manage that you know again, that is good. And if you can't, you know that's okay too.

Micah Riot: 14:54

The truth is your tattoo is going to heal. If you're a fairly healthy person, you take good care of your health, you sleep, you eat, you don't drink too much, it will heal Almost. Surely if you take a little bit of care of it, it will be grateful. Perhaps your healing will be easier the better care you take of it. But it's going to heal If you're taking care of it and you're again washing it sometimes and ointmenting it. It's really rare to have problems with healing.

Micah Riot: 15:21

And a note about the Aquaphor if you don't want to use petroleum-based products which some people don't they're sensitive to them there's other things in the market you can use. You can use a whipped shea butter product or a cacao butter product. I think what's important is that it's soft consistency. So shea butter usually is fairly thick and clumpy and if you get the whipped kind, you're going to be able to put it on your skin a lot easier. Aquaphor is quite soft and silky on the hands, so the more you know, know soft the consistency is, the easier it's going to be to get it onto your tattoo. And when it's sore, when it's those first few days after you get tattooed, when it's bruised, it is actually it. You're going to see it makes a big difference if the product you're using is soft, which is also why I like using the spray on aquaphor, because I don't have to really like rub it that much right, and it sprays it on your skin in a nice thin layer.

Micah Riot: 16:24

Already when I was being taught about tattoo care as part of my tattoo apprenticeship about 15 years ago. Something that I was told that I still hold on to because you know we hold on to things we learn early on and keep repeating is that aloe vera should not be in your tattoo care when you first get tattooed. You don't use stuff with aloe vera in it because aloe vera will make the skin heal faster than it normally would and you don't want that to happen. You want there to be a natural process at the natural speed happening in your skin, in your body, for healing a fresh tattoo. I've hold on to that information and I now see often, when I look at you know, brands that advertise tattoo care products that have aloe vera in them. I see that quite often I do not use aloe vera products on my own healing tattoos and I don't recommend them, but I see them and I do not think that you know what I was taught was the right way. Perhaps aloe vera is fine. I'm not personally willing to investigate but and I wouldn't recommend it to my clients, as I said. But I also don't want to say that the products out there that contain aloe vera are all bad or uninformed. However, you know, as I said, I am choosing not to participate in the finding out.

Micah Riot: 17:50

The two products that I have linked on my website to Amazon links are for care. Besides Aquaphor are a whipped shea butter by Evan Healy which comes in a little glass jar and it's quite fancy. I think it's like 50 bucks for not a very big jar. But it is lovely stuff so soft, so delicious, so fresh, smells nice. I mean, their stuff is just beautiful. I love Evan Healy for so many of my body care, face care needs, but you know it's pricey and I definitely don't think it's necessary. It's just nice if you can afford it. The other products that, excuse me, I just went to have a look at the Evan Healy product. It is $40 for 1.9 ounces.

Micah Riot: 18:35

The other product I have linked which is a bit more accessible, it is Alafia. It's 11 ounces of the stuff. It's a big jar. It will last you a long time. It's not actually a jar, it's a plastic tub. So Alafia is a brand that makes a lot of shea butter products for hair, for skin, and I personally think their stuff is nice. It makes a lot of shea butter products for hair, for skin, and I personally think their stuff is nice. It's a clean product. It doesn't have a bunch of crap in it. In fact it's just pure shea butter. It says on the package it's 11 ounces, as I said, and it's $14. So it's a much better bang for your buck and I think it works really well. It's just fine. So the link I have on my website to the Amazon listing for it has two kinds there's a passion fruit scent and there's an unscented version, and I would get the unscented version every time. I recommend the unscented version. So you just have to, when you go to the website, make sure that you click. The unscented version is what I recommend.

Micah Riot: 19:36

That's basically the care for your fresh healing tattoo. After those first few days you can stop washing it quite as much. Once a day will be enough. Try not to get the sloughing coming off skin off before it's ready to come off. So, like, don't pick at it, don't pull on those like drugs of skin. Let it be. Uh, let it fall off on its own and keep moisturizing carefully. You know, maybe spray the aquaphor pat, pat on the shea butter. Um, again, carefully, don't disturb the fresh skin and the skin that's trying to come off your body. Be, be gentle with it, be gentle with yourself, be gentle with yourself.

Micah Riot: 20:14

Things not to do, of course. Don't drink a bunch. That's just not really good for your body. That's also not good for your healing tattoo, and you know, keep it clean, stay hydrated. Drink lots of water. It's kind of advice for most things. Like you get a massage and they're like drink lots of water today. Like yeah, a massage, and they're like drink lots of water today. Like yeah, okay, I try to drink lots of water every day. So drink lots of water. Eat fresh vegetables and give your tattoo some air, but not sun.

Micah Riot: 20:41

You don't want to be sitting out in the sun with it. Please don't go in the ocean with your fresh tattoo or the river or the lake. Um, don't be in the sun with it. It's basically a it. It's essentially a sunburn. It acts like a sunburn. Your skin will come off it's all you know raw. It's a wound. It's like a bad sunburn. So you don't want to be sitting in the sun with it. Sun damages your skin and you. It's fresh and healing, so you don't be putting on sunscreen. So let it heal before you sit out in the sun with it, please.

Micah Riot: 21:14

Other things not to do don't let your cats and dogs go near it. They have bacteria. Don't soak it. So no swimming of any kind in the pool anywhere. No hot tubbing. No taking baths while still healing. So those first 10 days to two weeks don't take baths. No Bikram yoga right, like excessive sweating.

Micah Riot: 21:33

Basically, you don't want to submerge your fresh tattoo in wetness and hold it there. It will interrupt the healing process. It could give an infection. Don't do it. And showering is fine. You know you're having a little shower, wash it off, you're all good, all good to go. Also, no gardening or like no fresh soil, right. Fresh soil has bacteria. Don't put that anywhere near your fresh healing tattoo.

Micah Riot: 21:56

I have to give a note of caution. You have to seek medical help if you do see some really concerning signs. So signs and symptoms of infection are red streaks going from the procedure site towards the heart, elevated body temperature. You have a fever site towards the heart, elevated body temperature, you have a fever. Or if you have pussy drainage from the tattoo. These things are not common but they are possible. And if you have these kinds of signs and symptoms, please go seek medical help. And that's essentially the old school, traditional way of caring for your tattoo and I think it works really well. I don't think we need to do anything different. But there is another way of healing tattoos that is a little bit harder to explain, but I am going to be doing that now.

Micah Riot: 22:45

When you get your tattoo and your artist puts on that clear protective film called Tegaderm or Saniderm there's a few different names, a few different brands it's like a first aid film and it lets the tattoo breathe and it doesn't let moisture through Kind of magical, I know and it sticks to dry skin. It doesn't stick to wet skin, so it won't stick to your fresh tattoo. That was just done because it keeps releasing plasma. So there's not stick to your fresh tattoo. That was just done because it keeps releasing plasma. So there's not going to be stickiness between the wall of the plastic and your tattoo, but it'll stick to the skin surrounding it. Therefore, keep it nice and secure under there.

Micah Riot: 23:23

And if you are a person who is not sensitive to medical glue which a lot of us are, and I notice it being more and more common and your tattoo is on a body part that is kind of easy to keep steady, like an upper arm or a thigh, maybe a calf, it's a little bit harder to do on the torso because we twist and turn so much. But if it's somewhere, you can kind of let it be and you can tell that there's still a healthy border around where the tattoo is and where the plastic is right, so it's not leaking, it's not opening, it's not rolling up, it's not doing anything, but just staying nice and steady and closed up. Then you can use this plastic film to seal your tattoo in, release those juices. It's gonna release a bunch of ink and plasma, as we talked about before, and you'll see all the juice. It's going to be a pack of juice. It's going to be like one of those stickers from old school stickers that you poke and it's full of liquid. So it's going to be like a bag of liquid inside the tattoo, the pouch, and then your skin's going to absorb it back in and when that happens, a couple of days later, your tattoo will be basically healed a lot faster and it's not going to peel. The advantage of that, of course, is that it takes less time. You don't have to worry about washing it, ointmenting it, not sticking to your clothing, ruining your clothing, et cetera.

Micah Riot: 24:52

But the disadvantage is that it's quite hard to keep a tattoo that's still and steady, that it can retain that shape, that the plastic will stay on it, not move, not open, not leak. That's quite hard to do. There's a little bit of allowance for slight deviation from having to keep that first piece of plastic on your skin. You can do one redo. So what I mean by that is you have your first plastic bandage the next day. You take it off, you shower, you wash all the plasma off. Your skin should still be slimy feeling. If it feels a little slimy still, you're good.

Micah Riot: 25:33

You then put on another piece of Tegaderm. You can get it at pharmacies everywhere. It comes in sheets Like we usually use rolls. It's a lot cheaper for a tattoo shop to buy plastic in those rolls and for you you can get Tegaderm or Nextderm or those sheets from the first aid section of your local CVS or Walgreens or whatever pharmacy. So you would take those sheets and you would put them onto the tattoo, keep your body in a very neutral position as you do it, maybe have somebody else do it for you, make sure the edges are down and then you can keep that on for the next few days. You'll also probably get a little pouch of liquid and it will or you know it could start to dry up and it'll be dry. That's also possible. There's a lot of factors to think about when you're using the wet method, so I would not recommend this method to somebody new to getting tattoos. Somebody who is very experienced, knows how it goes, knows what to look for and is not allergic to medical glue which a lot of people are would be a good candidate to use the wet method. It has its advantages, but also has disadvantages.

Micah Riot: 26:43

Notes on being sensitive to the medical tape medical glue, it seems to me like more and more people are sensitive, one of the reasons being is because it can become cumulative. More and more people are sensitive, one of the reasons being is because it can become cumulative. Back in the day, we were not using Tegaderm, siniderm those kinds of wound care tools, because they were very expensive. You could get a couple of sheets of them for like $20 at a CVS or Walgreens these days, because people decided that they were a really good idea for tattoo care. You can get a roll of it, a nice big roll that will last for a few weeks for about 30 bucks.

Micah Riot: 27:19

And myself you know when I was getting my chest piece done and my back piece done, which was several years ago now. That was the first time that my artists were using that stuff on me and I am allergic to latex. I know that from early on in my tattoo career we used to use latex gloves and when you use latex for a long time, consistently, many hours a day, you'll become allergic to it, and that's what happened to me. I switched to nitrile. That seems to be going just fine. I do have some skin issues, you know, have some eczema and some irritations, and it is sensitive, kind of came on in my 20s. It was not something I experienced much as a kid, but yeah, I'm allergic to latex and so I thought that maybe Tegaderm, saniderm have latex in them. It's unclear from the packaging, but if you are allergic to latex, I would say that you shouldn't be using them and if you keep using them you might become sensitive.

Micah Riot: 28:15

And what that looks like what it looks like for me is that I get edge of the plastic. So it's usually a straight edge unless you cut it, but it's usually a straight edge, has corners. The edge of those sheets becomes red and inflamed and raised on me and it gets very itchy and I start to develop blisters. It happens fairly fast, I don't even have to keep the bandage on for that long couple hours. I could develop blisters, especially if it's in a more sensitive area, like an underarm or kind of like near the armpit, on the soft part of your upper arm, on the inside or inner thigh, on the soft part of your upper arm, on the inside or inner thigh, something like that. It will happen fast and then I'll have those blisters, they'll be itchy, they'll be irritated and they'll be scarred for like a month or two, way beyond the healing of the tattoo.

Micah Riot: 29:05

To me it's not really worth it. People have reported being sensitive in similar ways and they would be like you know I've been hearing this a lot more lately where people will be like tattoo healed, fine. But I'm clearly sensitive to something that you used and I'll be like it's the, it's the plastic wrap. Good to know we're not going to use that again. It's so convenient, it's so easy to keep your tattoo clean and breathing for that first day, you know, for after the tattoo session. It's so much nicer than using saran wrap and paper tape or something.

Micah Riot: 29:38

So, if possible, if a person can tolerate it, if it's not a big deal to their skin, I will use the Tegaderm. Yeah, I'm seeing sensitivity more and more and I tell people to watch out for it because it can become cumulative. The more you use it, the more likely you are to develop an allergy. Yeah, those glues are really harsh. I hope that maybe medicine will continue to work on that and create another type of wound plastic wrap care that is going to be less of a problem for people like me and a lot of other people that I tattoo.

Micah Riot: 30:12

If you see raised edge redness itching, take it off. It's not worth it, you know, especially with the wet method. Another reason I don't recommend it to people is because it's more exposure to the glue in the plastic wrap, and those are the two methods of healing your fresh ink. I hope this was helpful and if you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out and also look on my website. I have a bunch of information on there. I have links to the products I mentioned earlier. I hope you're having a lovely day and I'll see you next week. Thank you.