A tattoo is a wound. What you do in the first fortnight decides how it looks in ten years' time, so this isn't small print: it's half the job, and it's the half that's yours.
The first few hours. You leave the studio with a protective film on. Leave it on for two to four hours if it's standard film, or two to four days if we've applied a second-skin dressing: we tell you which one you have before you go. Wash your hands before removing it.
The first ten days. Wash the tattoo two or three times a day with lukewarm water and mild soap, with your hand, no sponge. Pat it dry with kitchen paper, never the bathroom towel. Then a thin layer of healing cream: genuinely thin, so it can breathe. If it shines, you've used too much.
What will happen and is normal. Between days 3 and 7 a thin scab forms and it itches a lot. Don't scratch and don't pick anything off: every scab you pull takes ink with it and leaves a gap. Around day 10 the skin looks dull or oddly shiny; that's the new layer, and by three weeks it clears on its own.
For three weeks, none of this: swimming pools, the beach, the sea, saunas, baths, the gym for the first three days, clothing that rubs and direct sun. Sun is the worst enemy of a fresh tattoo and of an old one too: once it's healed, factor 50 whenever it's exposed.
Call us if: heat and redness are getting worse after three days, there's pus, you have a fever, or at six weeks an area has healed light. The first is a matter for a doctor and we'll say so plainly; the last is a touch-up, which is free within the first year.