Skip to content 
Let me tell you, I’ve watched thousands of people make decisions they later regretted. But here is something that most won’t tell you: that fabulous ink you are walking around with right now? Well, you see, it is living tissue. It is not static art work hanging on the wall—it is part of your largest organ, and it is changing every single day.
You are constantly replacing your skin. Every twenty-eight days or so you are walking around in a practically new suit. And that tattoo pigment—isn’t just sitting there quietly, it is engaged in a stellar battle with your immune system, fighting against those natural processes which are intended to break it down and throw it out. This understanding changes everything.
The Biology Working Against (and For) You
Your body considers tattoo ink a victim. Smart idea, no? When that needle finds its peaceful rest in the dermis layer of skin, which is below that which you behold in the mirror,—your immune system sends for reinforcements. The macrophages invade the area and start gobbling up all of the alien particles. Some of them are successful, and that is the reason why fresh tattoos will lighten slightly during the time of healing. But here is the brilliant part: many of these macrophages become so dense and loaded down with ink particles that there is no further motion. They become permanent residents of the body, and thus hold the tattoo firmly in place.
They are not permanent, however; when they die, their contents are ejected from the body, and new macrophages come and reclaim the dye. Thus it continues through life. The tattoo softens and spreads a little as the humors soften but are not perfect after each application.
Consider now the effects of UV rays. UV rays destroy molecules of dye at the base. The shorter rays, AH rays and sun rays, penetrate the skin sufficiently to act upon your tattoo. They liberate the dyes in such a way that the particles into which they break up can be eliminated by the body more readily. It is on this account that a summer in the country or on the beach acts more upon the tattoo than several winters spent in the house.
As you grow older the skin gets thinner naturally. After thirty collagen is produced in the body at the rate of about one per cent annually. The elastin fibers are lost or produced at this age as well. So the media upon which rests the tattoo becomes thinner, less tight, more subject to wrinkles. A tattoo that looks sharp on tense skin of twenty-five looks very hollow on the skin of seventy.
Location is Important.
The position of the tattoo is vital, perhaps more vital than any other consideration, in my opinion. I have seen beautiful tattoos ruined because the location was poorly selected.
Your hands and feet are not very good subjects for ink retention. The skin is thick and the skin is constantly moving, for the skin is constantly in bounds. Tattoos in these places will fade appreciably in a few years. Moreover, since these parts of the body get so much sun, it’s rather difficult to keep bright.
Fingers are even more difficult for tattoos, where the skin is tightly drawn over bone and very little fat below it.
Every change in weight makes some change in the appearance of tattoos, weight increase or decrease, or swellings. The fine line designs between the knuckles? They will fade away in another ten years to mere shadows of what they once were.
There are certain places on the body that are more subject to such changes. The rib cage and the stomach are dangerous because skin stretching is caused by pregnancy or a change of weight and major changes are made in the design of a tattoo, looking like it is put on a funhouse mirror, such a beautiful circular mandala may look oval, straight lines may curve, and the proportions changed.
On the other hand, the upper arms, thighs, back and calves are particularly good places for tattoos, as the skin is thicker in these parts, is ordinarily more protected from the sun’s rays by the normal dressing, and anyhow always maintained stability during bodily changes. When properly taken care of, such a tattoo on the shoulder blade might be expected to look almost unchanged at seventy, when the same tattoo was done at thirty.
The following is a word to the wise about protecting the ink from sun rays.
To say flatly, if you are not putting on sun-burning oil regularly on your tattoos, you are running the risk of fading them beyond repair. Ultraviolet (UV) rays are a key factor in the deterioration of tattoo appearance over time.
Studies utilizing color measurement tools reveal that skin with tattoos exposed to sunlight without protection may lose approximately 30 to 40% of its color intensity in just five years.
They become established in the body and stay well in place.
However, these are not permanent; when they die their contents are thrown off, there are new macrophages that come and take the paint back.
But during this time the tattoo that is protected from the sunlight does not fade very much, not over ten per cent.
Let us put it in another way. Are you going to keep a valuable painting out in a bright light? your tattoo is an investment, worth several hundred if not thousands of dollars; it is a permanent part of your body, and they deserve the care that you would give to any valuable work of art.
The thing to do is to use a broad band sunburn preventative with a protective value of hence 30. This must be put on every two hours when out in the sunlight. “Broad Band” means protection from both the vlan as well as the V.U.B. rays. The VU rays penetrate into the skin and really do cause long time damage. This is one of the points many people forget, or else they put it on once in the morning and think that is sufficient for good protection.
As a protection clothing offers even greater protection than does sunburn preventive for many. This is one of the reasons that it is absolutely necessary for one who spends any great deal of time in the outdoors f where the sun can act surely wash away with a greater coat of lotion. The knowledge of this is much appreciated by the professional surfers and men who sail and who notice how quickly the tattoo fades when they are out in the sun continuously, as it is exposed to sunlight as compared to those which are covered up.
Hydration Not a Drinking Problem
The skin being hypertensive does not need moisture from on the outside, but moisture which it receives from internal hydration. Dehydrated skin is generally thin and crinkly and the fine lines are aging, and tattoos appear to have lost their vitality. Here it is not sufficient to drink eight glasses of water a day, because this, while it may supply hydration needed still unless there is care taken of moistening function of the skin that the eight glasses of water does not give the refreshment to the skin that it requires.
The outside of the skin (stratum corneum) requires topical moisturers to conserve its barrier functions. This barrier is a protection because it tends to co-ordination of life for the skin and this fullness gives vigour to the colors of the tattoo by way of an increased reflection of light from the surface.
Let there be especial care taken every day to use a good nourisher, one that contains hyaluronic acid, which is capable of absorbing to one thousand times its own weight of moisture, and ceramides which tend to restore the surface skin to the skin’s normal barrier function.
Evade heavy feeling alcohols and strong penetrating essential oils as these cause dryness and irritations in the skin around the tattoo. The damage continuing for some time will likely have bad results to the tattoo itself.
Do not forget one other thing that is a point which many omit. The part of the tattoo which is tattooed is equal to the good effect on the skin surrounding it. If this part of the skin is damaged or rough, or becomes flaccid or discolored it becomes a poor frame work for what may have been a well-made piece of art. Take care not just with inked areas but all parts of your skin.
Color chemistry is more important than you think.
Different colors of ink fade at very different rates and, in understanding why, you can make better design decisions.
Lighter color inks—yellows, oranges, light greens, pinked—contain pigment particles that are smaller and less stable on a molecular basis. They can be more easily broken down by U.V. light. Yellow pigment, in particular, tends to fade away within ten to twenty years, even with good care. White ink, what there is left of it, usually doesn’t come back at all or becomes virtually nonexistent and/or may have gone slightly yellowish in color due to itsite chemistry.
Reds can be confusing. Some reds are good, some tend to fade quickly, going on down to pink in a few years due to the bad pigments. Reds, however, have this tendency due to the red compound used by various manufacturers. The cadmium reds stand up fairly well while the organic reds get badly faded. They also differ in the healing response in people a lot of times, so that the cadmium pale reds may get an inflammatory response in certain skin, while the reds which are manufactured by organic pigments, will be OK.
The black inks are the “king” of the colors. The carbon-black pigment particles are larger and more stable than the colored inks and resist so much better, it seems, to the breakdown of the pigments from U.V. lights. This is why traditional black and grey work often looks terrific on older skin—the contrast is still there.
Blues and greens generally get on well with age, especially the darker values. They are molecularly stable and do not break down under UV light like warm colors.
Tattoo collectors with brains realize this. If you want work that 50 years from now will still have its strength, you are better to base your design on the black with touches of color than rely on large areas of light, or bright colored inks as the main feature.
Touch-ups Are Not Failures- They Are Maintenance.
You have the oil in your car checked regularly, Right? The tattoo needs the same treatment. It is a little naive to expect the tattoos of any one person to look identical in 30 years time without maintenance.
Most well-done tattoos benefit from a touch-up session every 10 to 15 years, depending on the situation in regard to the place on the body the tattoo is, sun exposure, the thickness of the skin and its natural aging. It isn’t covering up inferior work-it is sharpening, refreshing the known patterns of articulated line, restoring colors, etc., that have faded or deteriorated from the original state, but still keeping the headpiece or piece alike looking rather contrived and unthoughtful than old or tired.
The artists in general who did the work in the first place are only too glad to do the touch-ups, and will often do them for a lesser sum. They wish their portfolio pieces to look their best. If your original artist is not available to do the work-find someone who is au fait in the kind of work you now have. Do not have someone mess the tattoo who is not known to be competent in that kind of work.
Some people set their face against the idea of having to have a touch-up done on their work because they think when one does so it meant that the tattoo was a “failure.” That is ego instead of logic speaking. Your tattoo in this case is just doing the work it is meant to do and logically is doing. The touch-up is again an intelligence, not a sign of shame.
Your Life is Writing on Your Skin.
Smoking puts on accelerated age on skin to an awful difference. Blood supply to the skin is inhibited, causing delivery of oxygen and other materials to skin to undergo change. It breaks down collagen and elastin at a more rapid rate. Hence tattoos on smokers wrinkled and aged skin also go airy at a slower and a greater rate than on skin that does not wrinkle and age speedily. Not that one is being critical, it is just physiology.
Your diet is going to directly affect the quality of your skin, also sugar is terrible for skin because of glycation (the sugar molecules adhere to collagen and elastin) making them inflexible and fragile. But the foods that are high in antioxidants like berries, the green leafy vegetables and nuts will minimize the oxidant damage that eats away the cells of the skin and pigment of your tattooing.
Too much alcohol is dehydrating systemically and does cause inflammation, both of which are bad in their effect on skin health and appearance. Heavy long term inebriation can be reflected in your skin and also show up in your tattooing radiating outward.
Exercise improves the circulation and nourishment to the skin. But rapid growth of muscle will stretch the skin and may cause distortion to tattoo work in that area. Gradual growth is better than big cycles of bulking up in this area.
The Weight of Time is Real
Here is something no one wants to tackle, but must: Gravity wins every time. Skin sags. There is no getting around it. A tattoo on the upper arm may have changed location some two inches south in fifty years. One in the belly area may have enlarged and sagged as the distribution of fat with aging changed.
Totally negate this? Probably not, but nonetheless it can be slowed. For one, strength training will help maintain the muscular underpinning of the skin. Relatively stable weight helps keep you from the rapid degrees of expanding and contracting which causes more skin stretch. Good corrosion will help furnish some of the structural proteins which will be able to keep skin more firm.
Some designs are better aging than others.
Large tattoos featuring heavy lines and strong contrast last longer than fine detail or delicately executed lines. Japanese traditional, American Traditional and bold tribal designs are often impressive even on the older skin, because their large clear elements remain understandable even when the finer detail are somewhat blurred with age.
On the other hand, small delicate portraits or finely executed inscriptions are often beautiful at the start, and afterwards become somewhat obliterated or totally illegible, as they slowly fade and are in some instances somewhat blended. The wiser sort of person will pick designs which will have legibility in the future.
Your tattoo is a conversation between you and your happy thought future self.
In looking over the examples of man s efforts on his tattoo years from now, you will mentally refresh ideas of what you were then. They will certainly be suggestive of what those representations meant to you, the sensations that stirred within you and what life was to you then.
While it is important that the outward seems correct, the care of a tattoo means more than that. It means to care for the story you have tattooed upon the skin. It means learning to keep intact that decision you made long years ago in behalf of some former self.
Give yourself suitable and practical nurture. Protect the tattoo from the rays of the sun, keep the skin in condition to afford a healthy growth and obtain sufficient moisture, lead a life of a proper character to any tattooed man, and employ designs and placements on your own anatomy that enhance it without the possibility of taking away from it.
As the body and the tattoos gradually grow older together, you must guard against the impossibility of change, for it must come. Instead of attempting to stop it, determine to have it so conditioned when eighty years of age comes to you, that looking back on the etchings done, you will feel now thankful you had given them the attention that had kept them all right. You will wish that the honest intention would be expressed no matter if they are blurrily expurgated on the skin, until they soften themselves with maturity of the quality of the present sensative.
This care is not all within its old-fashioned appearance, but is that in the cast of our total bigness and self posses, that we should henceforth be kind to our own entire selves, and thus to look down on all our long established lack of immorality rather than try to hide it. Respect your selection made by a self long ago since it seems but fair when we have such a great big future. Snow White, and her fair self considered in different vocations to be realized, leads us on to the larger life that is suggested by freedom and all changed with the change of thought to mean kind treatment of self through all.
