Top 5 Fears About Your New Tattoo

#1. Will it hurt? Yes, a little. It has never hurt anyone bad enough to stop the tattoo. Tattoos are made by the creation of small holes into the top-most area of the skin. When the needle separates the skin to make these holes it feels like a warm to hot pressure against the skin. Not enough pain to stop but mildly uncomfortable. It will hurt less with simple relaxation and regular breathing. Everyone will respond differently to a tattoo and will experience a different level of discomfort.

#2. Will I bleed? Yes. In some types of tattooing, a needle tip's shape will cause smaller holes or larger holes, allowing for the ink to enter the skin. A smaller needle tip will not allow for much blood to pass through the skin but larger needle tips will allow a very small amount of blood to pass through it. Your skin will also push natural saline (salt water) through these small holes which may make the trace amounts of blood appear to be larger than they are. On a medium size tattoo(about the size of a business card) the amount of blood is less than o.o1ml, barely calculable.

#3. Will the tattoo fade away? No, Tattoos are permanent. A tattoo done with proper technique, will last your lifetime. However the application techniques is only part of the process. A client must be prepared to care for their tattoo, keep the skin cleaned, away from ultra-violet light (the sun, tanning beds) and exfoliate the dry skin away to have the best results.

#4. Will I faint? No. Some clients have fainted but is very uncommon. If you have eaten a light meal before the tattoo, you will be fine. A trained artist can identify the warning signs for this and in some cases can stop the tattoo to allow the client to have a soda and some candy to increase your blood sugar.

#5. Can I catch something? No. Tattoo suffers an unfounded stigma of association to transmission of blood-born diseases. Health Canada can not prove a link between modern tattooing and these conditions so they chose to include non-related studies from 3rd world countries in order to create a fictitious link. In the U.S., studies have found no links and even The Center for Disease Control, C.D.C., has concluded that even though it is possible, it has never happened. Out of all cases of Hep-A,B,C transmission reported in 37 years (1966-2003), 1,690,458, and HIV/AIDS transmission reported in 25 years (1982-2007), 1,147,697, only 4 were attributed to tattoos. Those cases were investigated and found to be false reports.

Things to know. Tattooing has been safe for studios choosing to use modern techniques. These techniques have advanced with time but even at a time when they were less advanced the techniques were enough to keep a client and artist safe. Tattooing should only be done on a clean, healthy and sober individual.