Chad Koeplinger: Hello, I am Chad Koeplinger from Tattoo Paradise in Washington D.C. Today, we are making a video about tattoo and piercing aftercare. We just did a little segment on lotion and ointment and how to apply on them and all that kind of stuff. Now, we are going to talk about what to expect during the healing process of your tattoo.

Your tattoo, if it's applied properly, done by a professional tattoo artist in a professional tattoo shop, which honestly just because you are in a professional looking tattoo shop doesn't mean you know what you are doing and or are good at it. So, make sure you check those portfolios guys.

If it's done properly and cleaned properly, the bandage left on as long as it needs to be and all that kind of thing, your tattoo should peel and heal kind of, like a sun-burn. It should look like a sun-burn with little flakes and what not coming off of it. It shouldn't be a heavy scab; it should be kind of thin and whatever.

But that doesn't always happen. Sometimes you end up with a scab, sometimes things feel a little rough, sometimes it's a light scab and it's not such a big deal. In the event of that happening what you are going to want to do is wash it, just like you would normally and apply a little bit of lotion on it once or twice a day and not as often as you would, if your tattoo was healing smoothly.

You can see this tattoo here on, on this gentleman. He got it a couple of days ago. He didn't leave his bandage on as long as he should have. So, its here in a little bit rough, you can see that the skin is just a little bit scabby, it's not too bad. Tattoos can also get a lot scabbier than that like real heavy duty scabs. What you are going to want to do if that happens is wash it once or twice a day like you normally would but do not put any lotion on it at all, because all you are going to do is add to the moisture of it and the, it's not going to ever dry enough for it to heal quickly, it's just going to take forever for the tattoo to heal.

There are certain parts of your body that are trickier for a tatoo to heal than others like the tops of your feet, bikini line may be also like in, where your elbows and your knees move and stuff. The reason for that is obviously, the movement of the fact that you are wearing clothes over it that are real tight and constrictive.

So, if you get tattoo in any of those places, just keep that in mind, maybe not really put any lotion on it, let it dry a little bit more as it s healing because they stay kind of moist anyway.

Other than that, don't pick your scabs and that brings me to the next point we are going to make here in the presentation which is going to be the dos and don'ts of the tattoo healing process.