Healed vs. Unhealed tattoos
I hear from friends and co-workers all the time: "How come my tattoo looked AWESOME right when I left the shop, but it looks so much duller once it's healed?"
The answer is usually not that color loss occurred, unless you really messed up the healing process. But rather, a fresh tattoo is usually overly saturated in ink, there is a finite limit to how much ink your skin can hold. Often, your skin will seep the excess ink the first day or two in the healing process. From there, your skin grows over the ink, and heals. But skin isn't perfectly clear, even if you're very fair skinned. It's translucent, which means it won't appear as dark as if it were right on the surface of your skin.
Sometimes, I get frustrated when a friend tells me, " i want a white tattoo, you know, so it's not very obvious."
I try to explain, white tattoos just don't work. If you're lucky, you never really see them. If you're unlucky, the minute you go out in the sun a chemical change occurs within the ink turning it a muddy orange/brown, and your 'invisible' tattoo is suddenly extremely visible.
But wait! I saw it on Tumblr/Instagram/Facebook! A beautiful bright white tattoo!
If you can find and show me a white tattoo that is 100% healed and still shows, please do. Most pictures you find circulating around of "white tattoos" are freshly done. The skin hasn't healed over. Everyones skin contains melanin, depending how fair skinned you are the less of it you have. Unless you're albino. But even then, once the skin heals over, you will be left with nothing except money wasted and a few weeks of discomfort, all for nothing.
Sometimes, if you scar during the tattoo process, the skin may raise slightly, giving you a braille-like-tattoo. But any GOOD tattoo artist shouldn't be scarring your skin.
Also, if you don't want it visible all the time, get it in an easy to conceal area, or don't get a tattoo at all. Actually, if you haven't done enough research to understand how tattoos work and what the process involves, you probably should learn more before you get a tattoo.
If a white tattoo appeals to you because you're not sure if you want something there permanently, you should probably reconsider tattooing. After all, some white pigments can turn yellow or brown after sun exposure, which is probably going to happen at some point, making your almost invisible tattoo very visible and quite unsightly.
Anyone getting tattooed should definitely do research. On the tattoo parlor, on their artist, on what reactions they may have to ink, on whether or not it could limit career opportunities in the future.
All of my information I get from either my personal experience, or professional tattoo artists and piercers.
A great resource for tattoo information if you have no idea about the process is Billy Hill on youtube. He answers lots of questions in a concise, easy to understand manner.
I am very open to discussion if anyone would like to add/ask questions.
