INFECTION AWARENESS

We want to try and educate clients on the best practices to avoid contaminating fresh tattoos with bacteria during aftercare.

Recently the issue of ‘Sepsis’ commonly known as blood poisoning has been in the media a lot, partly due to soap opera storylines about how getting a simple graze on your knee that you don’t clean properly turns into an infection at the site and eventually into potentially fatal sepsis or septic shock.

This kind of hygiene awareness is so important in hospitals, in day to day life but also in the tattoo and piercing industry.

We do everything in our power to ensure that you leave the studio with a perfectly clean, sterile, disinfected tattoo or piercing, tattoos are wrapped in sterile dressing and we then provide you with all the instructions needed to properly heal your tattoo.

We also offer a first day cleaning pack and butterluxe antibacterial aftercare balm at £5 each.

Infections are very rare, and hardly ever picked up from tattoo studios or their equipment directly, especially not reputable ones like ours! This is because of the amount of disinfectant and antibacterial products used, we can confidently eliminate the possibility of bacteria growing anywhere that the tattoo is exposed to. You can rest assured that all of our equipment is single use for each client & disposed of in a clinical waste bin, machines and power units are sterilised after every client with medical grade disinfectant and an autoclave and all furniture and surfaces are double protected with fresh plastic wrapping and medical disinfectant after every client.

Infections are most commonly picked up after you unwrap your tattoo, in your own environments at home. Bacteria is commonly present on bathroom towels, clothing, skin, furniture and in pet hair, dander and saliva among other places. So we can do our bit to ensure you leave us with a perfectly clean and sterile tattoo, and the rest is up to you!

The point of making you aware of this risk is not to scare you, but to help encourage best practise when taking care of your new tattoo. It is extremely rare for tattoos to become infected, but arming every client with the knowledge and tools to prevent it is the best way to ensure that it happens as rarely as possible!!

This is why we are overly cautious, and why we are constantly cleaning your tattoo during the process with medical grade soaps and disinfectants, and why we continue to clean it obsessively before we actually wrap you up! We aren’t just wiping it more at the end to cause more pain, we are trying to give you the best possible chance of a good healing environment!

WHERE YOU MIGHT PICK UP AN INFECTION:

Animal hair, dander or saliva. Unclean hands used for cleaning or creaming the tattoo, Fibres and bacteria from bed linen, furniture, bath towels and flannels etc. Bath tubs, swimming pools, saunas and the sea. You may also pick up infections from bacteria living on your own clothing, especially tight fitting clothes over open tattoos. Tattoos can become infected if the wrong aftercare balm or soap is used and aggravates it, or from picking or itching healing tattoos.

Bacteria grows everywhere, and it only takes a very small amount to get into your open tattoo (and not be cleaned away properly) to multiply and develop into an infection.

We have information on the signs and symptoms to look out for in our 14 day aftercare guide.

Remember that bacterial infections are VERY rare, especially if you take good care of your tattoo so don’t panic about every little thing, some things are part of the normal healing process. That is why we have the 14 day aftercare guide to check what is normal and what isn’t! 🙂

AFTERCARE:

We now offer a first day cleaning care pack at Black Moon, which we highly recommend you purchase. It’s £5 for the basic cleaning pack and £10 with aftercare balm included.

Purchase of these packs is not compulsory, but if you choose not to we do ask that you sign a consent form saying that you opted out of this offer.

We also always provide a 14 day aftercare guide, PLEASE read it carefully it is very important. Yes there is a lot of information in there, but it has the basic steps for cleaning and healing your tattoo as well as plenty of in depth information on what to look out for and how to care for your tattoo long term too!

ILLNESS:

You might also be surprised to know that if you are unwell or have recently been unwell or run down your tattoo could take a lot longer to heal due to a drop in your immune system response. Being unwell could also lead to an infected tattoo, so please be honest with us about your recent health and we will advise you on how best to treat your new tattoo.

SUPPLEMENTS:

You can use supplements such as vitamins C & A to help your skin and body heal quickly, and garlic and echinaecea which are powerful antioxidants and excellent immune system support. Zinc is also a useful supplement when encouraging healthy tissue repair in skin.

Eating lots of protein and drinking plenty of water leading up to and after your tattoo session is also really helpful for effective healing.

In short, please do ever not think that the tattoo process is complete when you leave the studio with your new tattoo clean and wrapped, it is really just beginning! The moment you unwrap it that evening you allow foreign contaminants to enter the tattoo site. Be as careful as we are. The healing process is JUST as important if not MORE important than the tattooing process.

There is loads of info on healing tattoos here:

https://authoritytattoo.com/tattoo-healing-process