Wrapping a tattoo

Worst way is saran wrap. It is non-porous, so all the blood/ink/plasma stays on the tattoo, and goes into it creating a breeding ground for bacteria.

To me the best is to use drylock bandages placed loosely on the tattoo. Drylock bandages are an absorbent pad for moisture. They draw all the sweat/ink/blood/plasma into them keeping the tattoo safe, and clean! :3

The whole saran wrap thing grew out of tattoo conventions. Artists would wrap the new tattoo in saran wrap because it offered barrier protection on the convention floor while letting the tattoo be visible to everyone on the convention floor. Just another example of a good idea gone wrong and brought into everyday practice. I think it probably continued to some degree outside of the convention arena because people love showing off their new ink as soon as they leave the shop and while it is not the most sanitary practice, having a see-thru saran wrap barrier is better than them walking into the bar across the street and taking off the drylock to show it everyone 20 times.

I got a tattoo 30 years ago and it still looks good… yeah ok it could use a bit of a color touch-up… but it looks better than 90% of tattoos I’ve seen that are 15 years old. The guy who did it (Ace) put a gauze patch on it and told me to remove it in about an hour and lightly hand-wash it with mild soap, then let it breath for half an hour before putting another gauze patch over it before I went to sleep so tossing and turning didn’t harm it (it was 1am when I left his shop, so yeah I was headed to bed). It healed perfect, no-scabbing, no-nothing. I have used that aftercare with every tattoo since, and the irony in this is my mentor also gives customers the exact same after-care instructions as I got 30 years ago… but yes at conventions he does use saran wrap for the reason I mentioned above.

Moral of the story… drylock is the best bet hands down, but if you know they are going to be showing it off for hours in a germ filled environment then at least saran wrap offers a barrier while still allowing them to show it off. But they need to be instructed as to why the saran wrap, and that as soon as they are home they need to gently wash it, air or pat dry and let it breathe… after 24 hours they shouldn’t be covering it anyway.

This is posted on our blog for the shop, I will repost here.:
“The use of plastic wrap to cover fresh tattoos may have gotten it’s start at biker events. I can remember first seeing it used in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Newly tattooed people were peeling off their bandages to show their bro’s their new ink and untrained tattooers came up with the ‘see through’ idea of plastic wrap. No need to peel that bandage back anymore. Blood wasn’t much of an issue in those days. Unfortunately some of our uneducated brethren have failed to see the dangers today and have continued this error-filled practice.What’s the Problem?The problem is that plastic wrap creates an occlusive seal meaning that no air gets in and no air gets out. This keeps all of the body fluids pooling on the skin surface. That surface builds up body temperatures to nearly 103 degrees which is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. Your new tattoo has just been turned into a petri-dish for bacterial growth. Nice, huh?
That pooling of body fluids–all liquids must go somewhere and that is to the bottom of the plastic wrap. Body fluids leak out and run down the body where people will brush against other people or surfaces thus creating a multi-contaminated field. And putting a piece of paper towel at the bottom does nothing to stop the oozing and temperature buildup.
Care to Rub on Someone’s Body Fluids?I recently visited a neighboring studio and witnessed a plastic wrapped client sitting in their waiting room with body fluids running down his arm into the fabric sofa. Talk about a contaminated field! Ugh! If such an unfortunate individual enters our studio we ask them politely to leave, as we don’t want their body fluids on our chairs, racks, counters or floors. I also give them a copy of this article to take back to the tattooers who obviously aren’t educated in blood borne pathogens.
It’s Not Only Gross, It May be Illegal. Most state tattoo regulations such as ours here in Hawaii specifically state the appropriate type of dressing to use. Hawaii Department of Health Regulation 11-17-10-H “the entire area covered with a piece of sterile dressing and secured with proper adhesive”. It’s even one of the questions on our tattoo licensing test!
Not only is the use of plastic wrap illegal in most regulated states but it is a cheap insult to a client who deserves a better start with their new tattoo. What price is proper bandaging? How do you put a dollar sign on contamination prevention?
Use of plastic wrap is forbidden in many quality tattoo conventions. National Tattoo Association and the Alliance of Professional Tattooists have outlawed its use in their shows. It’s time that all convention promoters educate themselves and make this ban an industry-wide policy.
Protect YourselfBefore you, as a client, get your next tattoo, observe the practices in your chosen studio. If plastic wrap bandaging is one of them, seek another tattooer who cares to educate themselves on proper procedure. Think – if they don’t have bandaging correct, what other errors in procedure are they committing?
Peggy Sucher Skin Deep Tattoo Waikiki Security Director, National Tattoo Assn Member, Alliance of Professional Tattooists”…….
Hope this helps.
Personally I do not wrap a fresh piece unless requested, I advise to begin aftercare immediately and send them off with a slightly moistened paper towel with a bit of green soap on it and some of our in house aftercare oil, (yes we make our own), and aftercare instructions. We also have a very long and extensive aftercare blog on not just what we recommend but a few different aftercare methods and even aftercare on piercings (which we do not offer at this shop).

@Lennart82 wrote:

And only disposable tubes and needles.

I have tried the disposables and hate them, I have noticed that with the weight of the frames that I use ( i prefer heavier machines) that in some cases I would get a slight bend in the plastic tube stem, what this did was increase the tension on my needle bar making me have toi readjust or turn up the volts on my PS, I have instead gone to a totally dry clave system and gotten rid of steam. Why a dry-clave, because instead of the standard 121 degree Celsius at 12-17% pressure I can now run my tubes at 176.6 Celsius for 15 minutes ( and in fact we run them for 30 -45 minutes depending on the amount of tubes ran at the time) and achieve sterilization. And at that temperature if anything is still alive then we aren’t going to kill it, plain and simple.

Wrapping the tattoo will give an very pleasant look for the tattoo.

Did you read the thread?

I have been reading recently on another forum about wet healing, essentially wrapping the tattoo in saran wrap for up to three days.. taking it off for an hour or so each day to let it breath but for the rest of the time, cleaning as normal, light ointment (or whatever), then re wrap. do this 3 times a day for three days, then leave it to heal as normal.  I can’t wrap my head around it yet. I understand the principle behind it but it doesnt seem right to me.

clean it, and non – stick gauze is how I do it.  Simple.  no need for me to write a chapter.  This should be one of the 1st things you learn in your medical training.
Good posts btw.

Spider, I understand and I don’t use saran wrap, never have, never will. I saw it done years ago and didnt get it then. My teacher even explained exactly what you said and that was 20 years ago, however I was reading this on a “professional” tattoo forum and they were explaining the merit of using this method. It was only for three days and had breathing time and other aspects to it. I just don’t get it and i doubt any doctor would either.