Your skin must be prepared to be able to tattoo on it under the best conditions. The result of your tattoo will mostly depend on these recommendations:

• • • No sunbathing nor UVA rays 15 days before your tattoo session.
    • Exfoliate the skin area one week before and moisturise it during that week. Don’t wax the area days before! (The skin will be more sensitive).
    • Don’t drink alcohol, don’t take aspirins or antihistamines and don’t eat spicy food 24 hours before your appointment.
    • We advise against the application of anaesthetic creams for your appointment: These compromise the result and the healing of your tattoo and we will not be able to take responsability for it.
    • If you have a cold, the flu or if you are sick, you can’t get tattooed. Remember to postpone your appointment 48 hours before, to avoid losing your deposit.
    • Come to your appointment wearing comfortable and wide clothes that won’t leave marks on your skin. And… It’s better if they are not white, or if they are clothes that you don’t mind if they get stained.
    • If you are going to get a complex piece tattooed and are on your period, your organism may be more sensitive to pain. If you wish, you may postpone your appointment 48 hours earlier.
    • Before coming to your appointment, relax and take a nice shower, shave the skin area chosen for your tattoo carefully and for your comfort. Eat something 2 hours before. (If you come during the morning, it’s very important for you to have breakfast before). If you wish, you may bring your bottle of water or soft drink and something sweet.
    • Don’t expect to suffer “a lot of pain”. When we start with your session you’ll see that it’s not that big of a deal and you will be thinking about your next tattoo!
    • If it’s your first tattoo, we don’t recommend you to start with long sessions on placements like ribs, knee pits, arm pits or hips.
    • Important: If you cannot come to your appointment, need to postpone it or cancel it, you must let us know 48 hours before, to avoid losing your deposit. A phone call or a message are easy and quick, and it lets us continue with the Studio’s work and appointments book.

• • • It’s important to maintain a simple hygiene habit, a clean environment and a responsible care to avoid complications and infections. This way you will also help it to heal in perfect conditions.
    • You may have a special care if you have pets at home or if you are in certain environments and conditions at work (If you wear certain garments and work uniforms, chemical products…)
    • The Sun is one of the tattoo’s worst enemies. Before, during and after the tattoo session, do not expose the skin and your tattoo under the sun or UVA rays.
    • Once the healing process has ended, you must protect your tattoo with the highest sunblock cream. If you want your tattoo to last intense and defined, it is basic to take care of your skin and moisturise it. In Rolling Tattoo we have Vegan Friendly products to take care of your tattoo and to protect it.
    • The beach, the pool, the jacuzzi, the sauna… Are enemies for your tattoo’s healing process. They soften the skin tissues during the cicatrization process and expose the cure to germs.
    • Avoid practising sports and high intensity exercises: The sweat, the possible bumps, the dust and the skin’s elasticity compromise the tattoo’s healing process.
    • Avoid wearing tight clothes on the tattoo area. We need it to “breath”.
    • Facing any emergency related to the healing process, don’t search for solutions in the Internet, contact us! We are here for you!

• • • You must know that the tattoo healing process will last around 15-20 days. After this period, the tattoo will be healed, but the skin will need a couple of months to get renewed completely. You will notice that its aspect is not yet uniform as in the rest of the body. For this reason, the moisturising is important.
    • During the first week, the tattooed area can slightly expel fluids, blood and ink. You may also observe that the skin might be swelled and a little bit red, but these symptoms must disappear during the first days.
    • It is normal to feel the area a little bit itchy… Do not scratch it! If during the healing process, you don’t keep the tattoo moisturised properly, you will notice the appearance of scabs. Do not pull them off! Let them fall off and disappear naturally while they heal. This way, you will avoid the depigmentation of the tattoo area and even skin spots. If you are not careful, you will have to restore and refill the tattoo!
    • Two hours after finishing the tattoo session, you must remove the paper bandage or plastic film that we have placed on your tattoo to protect it. Carry out the following process in an environment free of possible contamination. You must repeat this same process 3 or more times a day (Morning, Afternoon and Night) during the following 2-3 weeks. Do not touch your tattoo with dirty hands and avoid rubbing it with anything that could contaminate it. If so, you must clean it again.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. You must wash your hands properly. After this, wash the tattoo with cold water and PH neutral soap. Rub softly with your fingertips and rinse it. Do not use a sponge, just your clean hands!
            2. Dry it with a paper towel by soft taps (Never drag nor rub the paper towel) to absorb the dampness. Do not use regular towels nor cloths.
            3. Apply the cream on the tattoo. It’s important to apply it and ration it correctly. The skin must absorb the cream and look shiny, not white. Do not apply too much cream, because this may overhydrate the skin (You may notice the appearance of small pimples) and disrupt the tattoo’s result.
            4. Let the tattoo dry naturally without covering it if possible. If the environment conditions or the body area where the tattoo is placed don’t allow this, cover it with disposable paper till the tattoo stops expelling liquids and ink. Do not use plastic film to cover it! (It won’t let your tattoo breathe, it’s a wound).

• • • During this process, make sure your showers are quick to avoid softening the skin tissues and exposing them excesively to hygiene products.
    • Do not heal your tattoo with vaseline… It covers the pores and does not let the skin breathe.
    • Do not heal your tattoo with a healing cream that has been open for more that one year.
    • Facing any emergency related to the healing process, don’t search for solutions in the Internet, contact us! We are here for you!

• • • You must know that the tattoo healing process will last around 15-20 days. After this period, the tattoo will be healed, but the skin will need a couple of months to get renewed completely. You will notice that its aspect is not yet uniform as in the rest of the body. For this reason, the moisturising is important.
    • During the first week, the tattooed area can slightly expel fluids, blood and ink. You may also observe that the skin might be swelled and a little bit red, but these symptoms must disappear during the first days.
    • The healing process with healing bandages is faster, more effective, more comfortable and more hygienic. By experience and after observing results among our clients, it’s the method we usually recommend in our Studio if possible. It is a plastic and transparent medical sticker: breathable, waterproof and hypoallergenic that protects the tattoo from rubbings and infections. Just so you have an idea of how it works, it is like a big plaster.
    • Its use is not recommended for people with very sensitive skin, atopic dermatitis or allergies to adhesives (plasters, surgical tape…)
    • We don’t recommend this healing process during the Summer: The heat, the dampness and the sweating excess subtract adhesion to the bandages.
    • Here we explain the using process:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Once the tattoo is done, the tattoo artist will explain you its use and will apply the first bandage. This one will last between 8 and 24 hours and will collect all the excess of liquids that the skin will expel, getting these accumulated inside the bandage.
            2. After these 8-24 hours, wash your hands properly and remove the bandage: lift up one of the edges and peel it off gently in the direction of the hair growth. If it’s very attached to the skin, you can use some mild water to ease the process. Once it’s completely removed… Throw it to the paper bin!
            3. Wash your hands properly. The following step is to wash the tattoo and eliminate fluids and residues with cold water and PH Neutral Soap. Rub it softly with your fingertips and rinse it. Do not use a sponge, only your clean hands!
            4. Dry it with a paper towel by soft taps (Never drag nor rub the paper towel) to absorb the dampness and to be able to stick on the next bandage. Do not use regular towels nor cloths. Let the skin breathe for a few minutes…
            5. Hold the second bandage and peel off its back side (the matte paper side) to leave exposed the adhesive side. Place it, pressing gently, on the tattoo, covering it and making sure the skin is in a neutral position, not stretched nor folded (Just as if it were a plaster!)
            6. After this, remove the harder plastic side (the shiny and transparent side) while you put pressure on the thin film layer that must be stuck on your skin.
            7. This second bandage must stay placed on the skin during 3 or 4 days. In some cases, it’s possible that you notice some rests of the adhesive, but these will disappear with the cleanliness. Once the process has ended, remove the bandage as we explained previously. You can now begin taking care of your skin and moisturising just as we explain in the healing process with cream.

• • • During this process, make sure your showers are quick to avoid diminishing the bandage’s adhesion or to also avoid that the water gets inside the bandage.
    • If the bandage unsticks and leaves the tattoo unprotected, you must remove it and place a new one following the previous process described. If only one of its edges is unstuck (and always if the tattoo is still protected), you may help it not to get unstuck placing on that edge surgical tape.
    • If the tattoo is itchy, you may calm the skin caressing the bandage surface with your clean hands.
    • If after the application of the second bandage your skin looks red or irritated, you must interrupt its use and change the healing method, continuing with the healing cream. (Check the Healing process with Tattoo Cream.)
    • Do not apply the healing bandage on infected tattoos.
    • Facing any emergency related to the healing process, do not search for solutions in the Internet, contact us! We are here for you!

Avoid doing sports and high intensity exercise: The sweat softens the skin tissues during the healing process, and these must remain dry. Possible bumps and rubbings can harm the tattoo. The dust and the dirt of the environment where you practice any sport can infect your tattoo. The skin’s elasticity and behaviour during the sports activity (stretching and
compression of the tattooed area) will compromise the healing. The sports accelerate the functioning of the lymphatic system and the result of the tattoo depends on it. The lymph is one of the responsibles for the elimination of the tattoo’s ink.

We recommend to start doing sports 20 days after the tattoo session and only if it is in an advanced cicatrization process.

Regardless of the season of the year we are in when you get tattooed, you must follow the tattoo artist’s recommendations:

You must not expose your tattoo directly to the sun during its healing process. Even after this process, the skin will need at least 1 month to regenerate and moisturise to be in full conditions, otherwise, the sun can disrupt the skin’s pigmentation of the recently healed areas and leave marks. Our skin gets darker with the sun, but the tattoos tend to get lighter, because of the oxidation of the inks’ components.

If you are not a patient person, you must wait at least one month to sunbathe with sunscreen lotion. Our advice is to not sunbathe at least during 2 months after your tattoo session and from then, start sunbathing using high sunscreen lotions. Remember using the protective cream 2 hours before the sun exposure and renewing the protection layer of cream on your skin and especially on your tattoo every 2 or 3 hours.

Once the skin is protected from the sun, cared and moisturised, this will help your tattoo to keep its definition and shine better over time, and you will avoid having to refill them earlier than needed.

In Rolling Tattoo we have products and protective creams specially created for your tattoos.

• • • Around a 5% of the tattoo healing processes can get complicated with bacterial infections.
    • A simple rub with any surface that is not disinfected, where your pet might have been; touching the tattoo or applying the cream without washing your hands previously or applying the healing bandage without without being careful, are some examples that compromise your tattoo’s healing process.
    • The dampness and not keeping your tattoo dry also imply the appearance of bacterias, for this reason we recommend quick showers, no sports, no overhydration with cream nor “protecting” your tattoo with plastic film.
    • It’s important not to get obsessed with the healing process: Do it appropriately and safely is betther than exposing the tattoo to an excess of cares and possible contaminations.
    • If your tattoo is infected it does not mean that you are (or that we think you are) a careless or an unhygienic person. We don’t like judging anyone. Accidents happen! But do not blame your tattoo artist… We accomplish the Sanitary Regulations in our Studio, we go through Sanitary inspections, our work materials are disposable and our tools, furniture and products are properly cleaned after each client.
    • Infections damage the tattoo and put the client in the compromise of coming back to the Tattoo Studio to repair them if they want a beautiful piece. Don’t worry, this does not always happen!

How do I know if my tattoo is infected?

• • • During the healing processs it’s normal to see your tattoo looking a little bit strange: It expels a “mucous” aspect, scabs or skin flakes… After the first cures, this aspect must disappear and get better.
    • During the first days, the tattoo expels liquids and the skin can be red, swelled and warm. You can start getting worried if that sensation persists and gets worse for more than 3 or 4 days and the area is sore when you touch it (touching the bandage or when you are healing it with clean hands), if the design of your tattoo gets distorted and you see pus and it expels a bad smell.
    • If the area beneath the tattoo is excesively swollen, the skin is inflamed and the design starts getting distorted, it’s probable that the infection has begun.
    • In some cases, during the first days and after a long session (this lowers the body’s natural defenses) it is possible to have some fever episode, but the fever will only indicate that the tattoo is infected if it’s accompanied by the symptoms that we have mentioned previously.
    • The pain is very subjective. To orient you… The sensation of a newly done tattoo is similar to the one you feel when you are sunburnt.
    • When the tattoo is infected, it is not usually infected completely. You will notice pain and infection symptoms in very localised areas that can get extended if we don’t look for solutions.
    • It is best if you go to the Emergency Room in the hospital or to a dermatologist so that they check your skin conditions. You will probably have to start an antibiotic treatment with an antibacterial cream to attack the infection directly. Take a look to the tattoo healing method havind in mind this detail!
    • Do not use creams or lotions in the infected area. Only the medical treatment prescribed by the doctor.
    • To relieve the inflammation and the pain you may appy a clean and cold compress on the infected area.

Rolling Tattoo includes in its service the retouching needed on your tattoo during the two following months after the tattoo session without extra cost for the client always if it’s necessary. Our Tattoo Studio also counts on a Civil Responsibility Ensurance and a Proffesional Ensurance that cover the possible accidents caused during the tattoo session. This means that we only take responsibility for what happens inside our Studio and during the tattoo session. After years of experience, monitoring our work and customers service, we can assure that we will be of great help if anything unexpected happens, if the client’s attitude is honest and positive: The last thing we want is a client with reasons to be unhappy
with our service. It’s important to underline that all these details are included in our obligatory Informed Consent, that the client and the Studio must fill in by Law.

The retouching of the tattoo gets excluded in the following cases and will have to be in charge of the client:

• • • Hands and feet palms, fingers and their sides.
    • Skin transitions: Wrists and Achilles heel.
    • Hand knuckles, knees and elbows: Depending on the skin type, the tattoo can suffer a considerable erosion.
    • Dry or excessively dry skin.
    • Use of anaesthetic creams for the tattoo session.
    • If the client ignores the previous and after cares recommended by the tattoo artist.
    • Ortographical errors and/or mistaken translations: To avoid these, the client will have to revise and approve the piece before getting tattooed.
    • If you get your tattoo on sunburnt skin, under medical treatments such as antihistamines, anticoagulant treatments or if you have consumed alcohol or eaten spicy food 24 hours before the tattoo session.
    • If the tattoo artist’s work has been disrupted by the client’s bad behaviour during the tattoo session.
    • More than two months after the tattoo session.

The Studio does not take responsibility for the tattoo results in these cases:

• • • If the retouching guarantee have been lost for any of the previous cases mentioned.
    • If the tattoo has suffered an unappropriate or irresponsible healing process. The experience and opinion of the tattoo artist gives us a sufficient professional perspective to evaluate this aspect.
    • If the tattoo has been exposed to adverse conditions for the skin healing (Use of certain clothes and work uniforms, chemical products, medical treatments, damages caused by an accident…).
    • If the skin is very oily.

The skin quality of each client is very personal. It is true that the skin type determines the tattoo’s result. You must consider and accept these aspects once you get a tattoo done:

• • • An oily or very oily skin, because of its nature, will tend to thicken the lines and the dotwork parts of a tattoo during its healing process.
    • A dry or very dry skin will tend to fade away lines, shadows and fillings of a tattoo during the healing process.
    • If you have been sunbathing recently or are sunburnt before your tattoo session, your tattoos will get lost.
    • Removing scabs or doing sports during the healing process may lead to depigmented areas and cracks on the tattoo.
    • Drinking alcohol during the healing process will cause an unequal aspect to your tattoo, speaking of definition and tones.
    • TTaking antihistamines or spicy or very spiced foods before your tattoo session will make the tattoo artist’s work more difficult and will compromise the tattoo’s results.
    • The use of anaesthetic creams changes the skin’s behaviour during the tattoo session and after it. They compromise its healing and results.
    • If a tattoo made with black ink turns blue or greenish and loses definition over time it is because it has not been well cared and has not been protected from the sun.
    • The saturation, the tone and the colour shine of the black ink on the tattoos will be reduced after the healing process and if you do not take care of it properly, they will get lighter over time.
    • The skin tone determines the colour results of a tattoo. The lighter the skin tone is, the more faithful the colours and intensity will be to their tones.
    • The skin does not behave as a white sheet or as any other surface or “traditional” painting material. The skin is a living organ that obeys and responds to all type of internal and external factors: diet, medication, allergies, environment, hygiene, health…
    • Although the tattoo artist’s experience is important to foresee and avoid these results, as far as possible, we cannot certify them. We cannot either take responsibility for the skin’s behaviour or the healing process that the client accomplishes. We are professionals of the tattoo techniques, we know the hygienic measurements and the healing processes by experience, but we are not dermatologists. The tattoo should look just as you see it once you leave our Studio, having in mind the details mentioned before.
    • We don’t have any problem in doing small retouching works, always if the client covers the material costs. In any case, the client must assume that restoring or retouching a tattoo is a new investement of time and material and it is a service that is not included, except for special cases, in the price.
    • After reading this, we have good news for you: A tattoo is something ancestral! People continue getting tattooed. Our clients leave our Studio very happy and come back. We have 7 years of experiece! We like our work and we love getting involved in it!