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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Think Before You Ink: What You Need to Know

by

Caroline Moses
2531 days ago
20180824

Caroline Moses

IT’S PAINFUL:

This one goes with­out say­ing, but get­ting a tat­too is in­cred­i­bly painful. Any­one who tells you oth­er­wise is ei­ther ly­ing, has the tini­est tat­too or has the pain tol­er­ance of Hulk, which is be­yond im­pres­sive. But no, tat­too = pain. The process to get a tat­too in­volves sev­er­al nee­dles punc­tur­ing your skin to in­sert ink. That cer­tain­ly doesn’t sound like a walk in the park. None of this is to dis­cour­age you from get­ting a tat­too, of course, but we like to pre­pare you for what you might feel.

Of course, the lev­el of pain de­pends on the size, lo­ca­tion and how elab­o­rate the de­sign. The big­ger the tat­too and the more fine lines and de­tail­ing re­quired, the more pain you’ll ex­pe­ri­ence. The lo­ca­tion plays a huge part – tat­too­ing some­where on a bone, like your ribs, an­kle or wrist is def­i­nite­ly more painful than tat­too­ing a fleshi­er, meati­er part of your body.

So if you have a low pain tol­er­ance, or you don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly like nee­dles or blood, then maybe it’s time to re­con­sid­er get­ting a tat­too.

IT’S FOR­EV­ER (BA­SI­CAL­LY):

Choos­ing what you want tat­tooed on your body is as big of a de­ci­sion as de­cid­ing to get tat­tooed in the first place. Re­mem­ber, this is for­ev­er. You’re in­ject­ing ink in­to your body to cre­ate some­thing that’ll last on your skin for decades, so if you think that you’re go­ing to get fed up of look­ing at that dol­phin tat­too on your an­kle, or that Chi­nese say­ing that you aren’t re­al­ly sure ac­tu­al­ly means, then maybe re­con­sid­er. A gen­er­al rule of thumb is to avoid get­ting any type of re­la­tion­ship tat­tooed on your body – friends stop talk­ing, cou­ples break up, and the last thing you want is a re­minder for decades to come. Sure, it’s not ac­tu­al­ly ‘for­ev­er’ – you can do laser treat­ment to re­move the tat­too, but that’s even more ex­pen­sive than get­ting the tat­too in the first place. So if you’re not sure, maybe re­con­sid­er.

IT RE­QUIRES LOTS OF CARE:

You think that the most im­por­tant part of get­ting a tat­too is choos­ing what you want and where to put it, but you may be wrong. A tat­too is a rather in­va­sive pro­ce­dure on your body, and you’ll have to care take of your tat­too for weeks, if not months, af­ter you first get it to en­sure that it heals prop­er­ly. This may in­clude stay­ing out of the sun for weeks at a time, avoid­ing get­ting it wet, and car­ing and tend­ing for the skin when it peels or itch­es, as tat­toos tend to do. If you use a lot of scent­ed skin­care prod­ucts, you’ll have to switch to an­tibac­te­r­i­al or un­scent­ed prod­ucts un­til your tat­too is all healed. It’s a com­mit­ment, and if you aren’t pre­pared for all the post-care work, it might not be right for you.

A GOOD TAT­TOO ISN’T CHEAP:

You know the say­ing: good thing no cheap, and cheap thing no good. Con­sid­er­ing this is a per­ma­nent mark­ing on your body, make sure to put aside mon­ey and pay for some­thing that’s a job well done. The bet­ter the tat­too artist, the more ex­pen­sive they’ll be. So if you’re re­al­ly ready to get a tat­too, en­sure you’re mak­ing the right de­ci­sion and in­vest­ing in your body.


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