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andrea24601 · Tattoo lover Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

alright, well i have decided to get my first tattoo, I've thought about it for a long time and i have decided to get a small question mark tattoo in about the middle of my left shoulder blade, kind of close to where your bra strap would line up. anyways part of the reason i decided to put it there is because i have a birth mark there which i want to use as the dot in my question mark. the idea was to make it look as if it was part of me, almost just like a funny birthmark. see the problem is, my birth mark is light black, possibly brown it's hard to look at it closely, i had black ink in my head but i don't want one to be darker than the other, since my whole idea, well one of the many reasons for this tattoo, is to use my body's natural beauty. do tattoo artists match the black ink to the shade you want or is black ink just black ink? can they make it lighter to match or should i tell him to mix up black and brown or what? also, i told him it was only going to be black ink in my consultation, should i let him know ahead of time if i do want a bit of brown included? what do you guys think, also i have somewhat brown skin if that's helps.

also exactly two weeks and two days after i get my tattoo i'm going to an outdoor music festival for 6 days, what should i do with my tattoo? avoiding the sun is pretty much impossible as that week is usually one of the the hottest weeks in the summer. i want to take care of it but i'll be sweaty and smelly and at that point i'm going to need to have showers (they wont be hot though which is a plus) and i'm going to be exposed to the sun. i mean i can put sunscreen on it but i'm worried that the scabs wont be healed yet. the tattoo is going to be really small but i don't know if that matters or affects the healing time. any advice or questions that i can clarify? what can do i to prevent it, it's a hippie fest so i'll most likely be drunk and dirty.
Confused

any advice is more than welcome and thanks for reading this long post.

andrea24601 · Tattoo lover Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

i'm getting to tomorrow so any help would be appreciated sooner rather than later.

mommabird · Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:33 am Post subject:

Andrea, if it were me, I'd wait to get the tattoo until after the festival. The NUMBER ONE thing to remember with a new tattoo is to keep it clean, and it sounds like it will be hard to do during this time period.

Also, sun can really be your tattoo's enemy, especially a fresh one. I'm not sure that it would be recommended to apply sunscreen with it that new.

You've got to remember that your tattoo will be on you for the rest of your life - it would be worth it to me to wait a couple of weeks so that it will heal properly - so that I'd be happy with it for the rest of my life as well.

Perhaps some of the artists will pipe in ...

andrea24601 · Tattoo lover Joined: 21 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

well...i already got it done and i asked my tattooist who said it would be completely healed by then and that he's going as well and just go to see him afterwards. i think when i was wearing the bandage the ink smeared a little and i'm hoping that will come off in time, it's not too bad just to my perfectionist eyes. other than that it's beautiful and perfect and it didn't hurt at all. in fact i found it incredibly dangerous that it didn't hurt as i might get hooked.