How long does it take for a tattoo to heal? – (Update 2021)

how long does it take for a tattoo to heal? This is one of the very common questions that everyone wants to know after complete there tattoo. You can get the appropriate answer to these questions from your artist because they should have the ability to answer this question.

Here we try to help you by answering this common question. We also wish that our article will help you to shed some glow on all of them, unlike ways that could affect the time for your tattoo to heal.

How long does it take for a tattoo to heal?

Sometimes it becomes very hard to guess how long does it take for a tattoo to heal? But everything has its own solutions. Along with this, there are several ways to stop tattoo healing from becoming a haul. All of our following tricks and tips may help you to reduce the time of tattoo healing.

Everyone heals differently because they have their own unique immune systems and skin properties. So 2 people cannot heal in exactly the same way.

Now we are going to explain the average healing time of a tattoo and the factors that affect tattoo healing time.

Average tattoo healing time

On average, a tattoo usually takes almost 2-3 weeks to heal completely. In general, healing time actually depends on some factors, for example how well you care about your skin, tattoo, and the location. But usually, the tattoo takes about 6 months to complete fully

How to minimize the time of tattoo healing?

Usually, Tattoo needs about 2 to 3 weeks for completely healed. And to heal your tattoo completely, your skin of the body does lots of things at that time.

Your tattoo may also need some extra few weeks to healed truly all every layer of your skin. And the timeline of tattoo healing also depends on all of the following factors like

Types of tattoo ink
Size of your tattoo
The designs of your tattoo
Immune system
A body ability to fight with infection
Tattoo aftercare process
Tattoo aftercare treatment – especially protection from the sun and cleaning process of a tattoo.

You should also need to consider all of the following factors, which may help you to reduce tattoo healing time.

Infection

The tattoo may take a long time for healing if the tattoo affected by the infection. While the tattoo is healing, you should check tattoo for signs of rash, fever, hard, raised tissue, puss, discharge coming from the tattoo, redness, tenderness, etc. If you find any of these signs for more than two days, without delay you should call your doctor. All of this could be the cause of infection, so you may need to take an antibiotic. So, follow the exact instruction of your doctor to recover fast, otherwise, an infection could spread on your other body part, would be causing blood poisoning and other complications.

After completing the tattoo you should rinse the tattoo with the antibacterial, soap which is fragrance-free soap and warm water daily almost 2 to 3 times on a daily basis.

Before selecting the best tattoo shop/parlor, you should research the proper care guide of tattoo that will helps you to minimize the risk of infections and complications.

We can suggest to you about any risk factors, but you should keep in mind that we are not a doctor and your artist is also not a doctor, so if you find any symbol of any infection, you should call your doctor instantly.

Use protection

To protect the tattoo from dangerous bacteria your tattoo artist will wrap your whole tattoo after complete full tattoo. And after a few hours, your skin could push plasma out from an open wound, which is the normal response of skin with the new ink. Plasma is the liquid protein of blood, which is about 50%. Oozy ink may spread everywhere after removing your wrapping from a tattoo.

Tattoo aftercare instructions

A good quality lotion of aftercare will help you to speed up tattoo healing time by keeping your tattoo well moisturized. After washing the tattoo area each time you should apply your aftercare lotion about 2 to 3 times each day.
Usually, aftercare lotion speeding up the process of tattoo healing that will ensure you a clear and bright good looking tattoo.

Don’t submerge tattoo in water

After having a tattoo, you should protect a tattoo from the water. Submerging tattoo in the water for a long time is harmful to the skin. So, for the first few weeks, you need to wash your tattoo with little water for a very short time.

At least for three to four weeks, you should avoid your bath

Use fragrance-free soap to wash your tattoo with warm water

Don’t try to keep the tattoo in the line of the firing of the head of a shower for a long time.

To prevent tattoo ink out, short your shower time as short as possible. And after taking your shower, don’t rub the tattoo, let them dry.

Stay out from the swimming pool and sea for at least 3 to 4 weeks

Always try to be clear at least for 3 to 4 weeks

Avoid sunlight

Sunlight is one of the serious killers of a tattoo. UV rays are very harmful to tattoo for the first 2 to 3 weeks. Sunlight may cause burns and skin irritation.

Physical activity and working out

After getting the brand new tattoo, you should avoid your daily routine of physical activity and work out at least 2 to 3 days. Because, if you continue your activity, it will weaken your immune system slightly, which may delay tattoo healing time.

Immune system and general condition of your body

Your tattoo may take a short time for healing if you are physically and mentally fit. Before doing a tattoo, you should confirm that you are getting a proper amount of fruits, vegetables, and other vitamins on a daily basis. But if you have any confusion that you do not get the recommended amount then you will need to supplement all of these with a good quality multivitamin. Multivitamins will help your body to boost the tattoo healing capacity as well as possible.

Skin rubbing and location of a tattoo

Usually, on a regular basis different parts of our body rub naturally, for example – our fingers, thighs, under-arms, etc. The main reasons for this rubbing are clothing and the skin to skin contact. So after getting the tattoo, you need to concern about your clothing and you should avoid skin-to-skin contact as much as possible. Overall you should try to be protective as best as possible after having a tattoo.

What to wear after getting a tattoo?

To make leg tattoo healing more effective don’t wear any type of socks and any footwear that could rub your skin for a couple of days.

For the shoulder, the tattoo tries to wear the loosest cloth.

Don’t try to wear any type of cloth that may irritate your skin. Moreover, this type of cloth also causes excess sweating that may draw tattoo ink out.

For a week try to wear cloth which is more breathable and also sit down anywhere carefully.

The back area of our body is very problematic because whenever we try to sit down anywhere with a backrest we cannot sit properly. In this situation try to move often.

Overall, over the area of tattooed try to wear loose-fitting cloth as possible as you can. And by doing all of this you will speed up the total time of the tattoo healing.

How to sleep with a new tattoo?

People how to decide to have a permanent tattoo, often become tensed about their sleeping process with a new tattoo. To protect your tattoo you need to wrap tattoo at the time of sleeping. Because if you don’t wrap tattoo while sleeping, that could cause ink loss or scarring. Do this process almost for three to five days. With the wrap, you can sleep safely and also comfortably. With better sleep tattoo may heal perfectly. On the other hand, Poor sleep may lower your immune system which may cause a longer healing process.

How long does a tattoo take to fade?

There is a common saying that “A tattoo lasts forever” but the reality is that it may last forever without looking good. Because tattoo becomes fade over time.

A few years letter after getting a tattoo, you will have the most likely faded tattoo. The colorful tattoo will fade usually for lack of good care. On the other hand, the light tattoo will fade more quickly than a color one.

Pastel and watercolor tattoo also fade quicker than other colors. And black and gray or black and white tattoo also have the same condition.

However, in recent years colored tattoo improved which prevents tattoo fading faster compare to the previous record.
Many factors are caused tattoo fading quicker, some common factors are discussed below

Placement of the tattoo

Generally, the fading time of the tattoo depends on tattoo placement. If you have a tattoo on a body part where you may usually rub anything else’s may fade faster, for example – if you have a tattoo on top of the feet it will fade quickly.

Quality of ink

Quality of ink is one of the important factors of tattoo fading. If your artists use the ink which made from low-quality component then it will not last for a long time.

Healing quality

The effective healing process and perfect aftercare of tattoo are most important to protect your tattoo from fade quickly. So to keep your tattoo for long-time care your tattoo as best as you can.

Sunlight

One of the main reasons for tattoo fading is sunlight, it can fade your tattoo badly if you are not more careful about it. It has dangerous UV rays that are invisible. This ray may infiltrate your skin that may break the tattoo ink. In addition, for all tattoo sunburn is a great enemy. With sunburn, our skin will die and flake at a faster rate, which may damage our lower layers’ skin.

In general, your tattoo may fade slowly with proper care as time passes, which is a natural process. There have not many ways to recover faded tattoo, the most effective way to recover the faded tattoo is to touch-up the faded area by an experienced tattoo artist.

Important Tips you should keep in mind

Although, how long does it take for a tattoo to heal? is a very simple question, but sometimes it becomes so hard to estimate the exact healing time of a tattoo. To make the tattoo healing time as short as possible, follow all of these tricks and tips which are given below.

• One of the important parts of the tattoo healing process is the aftercare of a tattoo. If you don’t follow the proper aftercare process your tattoo may take them a too long time to heal. After having tattoo clean tattoo with warm water and soap on a routine wise.
• Stay away from swimming pools and germs for a couple of days.
• To prevent any type of infection, you need to keep the tattoo moisturized.
• Don’t worry if in the stage of tattoo peeling, some colored skin falling off at the time of tattoo cleaning.
• In general, few scabbing is normal for a new tattoo. But you may also have the experience of large and darker pieces of scabbing. And it may cause if your artist went too deep with a tattoo needle or if they have been too rough with your tattoo. To handle this situation or if you have excess scabbing, you need to meet with your artist to get some exact advice to recover scabbing.
• Among all ink colors, usually red ink color may have huge adverse reactions for healing. So be careful if your artist uses red ink on your tattoo, although it takes a short time to heal.

Tattoo healing check sheet

Here for you, we make a sheet of quick tattoo healing cheat that will help you to heal tattoo as quickly as possible. Check the tattoo healing check sheet
The immune system of everybody is different, so make your own food chart according to your body’s need.

• Generally, within 2 to 3 weeks tattoo healed perfectly, but it may take some extra time to shine slightly
• If you have the tattoo where your artist uses ink below the surface layer of your skin, then your tattoo may take a longer time to heal, it may take almost 2 to 4 month.
• Avoid bath and also swim with a new tattoo
• Don’t scratch on your peeling skin
• Don’t try to expose a tattoo on sunlight
• Try to wear loose-fitting cloth, especially on the backs, upper legs, feet, shoulders, and bottom.
• Red ink color is the hardest color for a tattoo to heal quickly. Black and gray tattoo also heal quickly compare to colored tattoo
• Eat healthy food or take a good multivitamin that improves your immune system to boost healing time.
• If you suffer from health problems for a long time, then before getting a tattoo to visit your doctor to get medical advice.
• Use aftercare lotion or other products to take proper care of a tattoo
• Wrap tattoo before going to bed for sleeping, which protects your tattoo

In summary

we can say that from all information of this article you already may get the answer to the question of how long does it take for a tattoo to heal? Now we want to say you that we are not a doctor at all we can provide you with all the important information. So if you have any longtime health problem, then without delay your time visit your doctor before getting a tattoo. From where you may get effective medical advice. Should also take care of your tattoo effectively. 

Hopefully, from this article, you may now get the idea about the very important factors of the tattoo healing process. Please feel free to share your experience of tattoo healing through our comment box. Best of luck.

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