Look After the Art
A fresh tattoo is freshly worked skin. Until the skin closes, your job is simple: keep it clean, keep it moisturised, and stop touching it. Almost every ruined tattoo comes from doing too much, not too little.
Before anything else: follow the aftercare instructions your artist gave you. They know what they put in your skin, how deep it went and how long they were on it. This guide fills in the gaps — it does not overrule your artist.
The routine — three stages
Wrap comes off when your artist says. A gentle wash with clean hands, pat it dry with paper towel, and then nothing on it. The skin sits with the work overnight. Nine times out of ten, that is how the first night goes. Your artist has the final word.
Restore Balm
From the next morning, the thinnest possible layer of Restore Balm on clean, dry skin — matte, never shiny. Morning and night, for the first seven to fourteen days depending on the size and detail of the piece, while the skin closes over. A richer balm that seals and protects.
Recovery Cream
Once the flaking has finished and there are no open patches, step down to Recovery Cream alone, daily, through the months the work takes to settle. Lighter, sinks in fast, no residue. Sixty seconds after a shower. Dry skin scatters light and makes black look grey; hydrated skin holds colour.
This is the point where most people stop doing anything at all — and it is the exact point where the next ten years are decided.
The balm is too heavy for the second stage. On its own, the cream is too light for the first. That is why there are two formulas, and why they are sealed as one set.
The full protocol comes with the set
The full routine, and the layered protocol for heavy work and full-day sessions. In your inbox the morning after you buy at the counter, or once your set has landed. Earned, not handed out.
The Ritual Duo · $59.95 · free shipping Australia-wide
Normal — versus call your artist
Normal. Leave it alone.
- Redness and warmth around the lines for the first few days
- Plasma weeping, and ink on your sheets or clothes
- Flaking, peeling and coloured skin coming away
- Vicious itching around the end of the first week
- A cloudy, dull, “milky” look for two to four weeks
- Small patchy spots that fill back in as it settles
Ring the studio. Today.
- Redness that keeps spreading outwards after day three
- Yellow or green discharge, or a smell
- Pain that is getting worse instead of better
- Fever, chills, or swollen glands
- A raised, hot, angry rash — possible reaction
- Red streaks running away from the tattoo — go to a doctor, not the studio
The list of ways people wreck a good tattoo
- Picking or scratching scabs — every one is a gap you will pay to have fixed
- Soaking it: no baths, pools, spas or ocean for at least two weeks
- Sun on a fresh tattoo, and no sunscreen until it has fully settled
- Slathering it — a thick layer just sits on the surface and wastes product
- Sharing a communal jar that has been open on a bench all week, or reaching for nappy cream and whatever else is in the bathroom cupboard
- Tight clothing, gym straps or anything that rubs over it
- Heavy training and heavy sweating in the first few days
- Letting a pet sleep on it, or re-wrapping it in clingfilm overnight
The part nobody tells you
Tattoos are not lost in month one. They are lost in year three. The line work softens, the black goes flat and grey, the colour drops half a stop, and nobody can point at the day it happened. That is sun, dry skin and neglect doing their work slowly. It is almost entirely preventable, and it costs sixty seconds a day. And wear sunscreen on it — sun is the single biggest cause of faded tattoos. SPF 50 on exposed work, every time, once it has fully settled.
days of Restore Balm
Seals and protects the skin’s surface through the first seven to fourteen days. This is the part everybody already knows to do.
the daily sixty seconds
Recovery Cream through the months it takes to settle, and back to it whenever older work needs freshening. This is the part almost nobody does — and it is the difference between a ten-year-old piece that still reads and one that has gone soft.
That is why The Ritual Duo is sealed and never sold apart. Selling you the balm on its own would be selling you half a job.
From the founder
The Ritual Duo
Restore Balm + Recovery Cream · 60 ml each · sealed set · $59.95
Order online, free shipping Australia-wide — or ask at the counter at Squires Ink.
TEL Collection is Aqua747 Pty Ltd · ABN 62 679 571 021
Squires Ink Tattoo Studio · Shop 7/26 Orchid Ave, Surfers Paradise QLD 4217
This guide is general information for healthy adults and is not medical advice. It does not replace the instructions your artist gave you. If you have a skin condition, a known allergy, are pregnant, or you think your tattoo is infected, speak to your artist or a doctor.