James Boyd

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):

• Hand hygiene (soap and water method as well as alcoholbased
hand rub)
• Gloves
• Protective eyewear
• Gowns
• Masks

Every tattoo studio should have a “dirty” room where biohazardous
material is kept and regularly disposed of. In your work
area you should a rubbish can, or non-regulated waste and a
biohazard can, also called

Types of barrier control devices used under Universal and Standard
Precautions are:

• Nonporous covering on all furniture
• Nonporous flooring
• Nonporous working surface
• Protective sheath covering tools (to be

There are a lot of preventative ways to keep bodily fluids off of
yourself, your client and your equipment using barrier control
devices also called barrier protection. Avoiding contact with
bodily fluids can be

The CDC also goes on to define bodily fluids as:

• Blood
• Bodily fluids containing visible blood
• Semen
• Vaginal fluid
• Cerebrospinal fluid (around the inside of the brain)
• Synovial fluid (of the joint

The CDC defines universal precautions as:
“a set of precautions designed to prevent transmission of human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and other
blood-borne pathogens when providing first

The key thing to know about chemicals is that not all are approved
for use with your instruments that will come in contact
with the skin, and some may cause some serious damage to
your expensive professional

There can also be some complications when using chemicals
to clean your equipment. Leather armrests and furniture can
be all but destroyed if the wrong chemicals are used on them.
Your tattoo machines may corrode

Sanitation chemicals come from all different suppliers and
manufacturers. These chemicals are typically not usable on
instruments that will come in direct contact with the human skin,
because they are too much of

The tools that are directly used in the tattoo process are typically
the primary focus of sanitation. It is important to also remember
that the surfaces around the work area are just as prone to bodily
fluid

This is just an opinion, and a good foundation for a beginner
to practice. You will see that a great number of artists do not
use disposable tubes and tips, and even less will use disposable
inks. Most clients are

The typical ink or pigment that is used in tattoo process is kept
in a bottle, usually 1oz-8oz. The artist is supposed to open the
ink bottle, and fill the caps with ink prior to starting the tattoo.
The artist is

Arguably, one of the greatest inventions or advancements in
the tattoo industry is the disposable tube and grip. I say arguably
because some artists appall them and refuse to use them.
I swear by them and have

According to CDC (Center for Disease Control) guidelines:
“If spores are not killed in routine spore
tests, the sterilizer should immediately
be checked for proper use and function
and the spore test repeated. If

The seals must be replaced on your autoclave and you
must conduct preventative maintenance checks and servicing
regularly on all expendable parts of the autoclave.
Equipment must be cleaned prior to sterilization

Sometimes it is hard for artists to remain vigilant in regards to
disease and infection prevention. That is why it is highly recommended
for all studios to
hold internal, mandatory,
refresher training for

HCV is transmitted primarily through large or repeated percutaneous
(i.e., passage through the skin) exposures to infectious
blood, such as:
Injection drug use (currently the most common means of HCV
transmission

Here is an example scenario:
Joe conducted a weekly spore test on his primary autoclave
on 01 January.

Joe ran 200 tube and tip combos though his autoclave from
01 January though 08 January.

Joe conducted a

Some of the tattoo artist’s tools are not disposable. Some of the
equipment that is used during the tattoo process will be re-used
again on another client. The preferred method is to use as much
expendable

Any profession that deals with the human body and particularly
that which there is an open wound and sharp object present,
requires the utmost importance in the focus on the prevalence
of and possibility that a