Maybe this will help you make your decision. First tattoo fail. 
Don’t do it! There is no need to disfigure your beautiful, natural, skin.
What city/region/state are you in? If you happen to live near a fellow tattooed doper we may be able to tell you where to go or where to stay away from.
Wow, rarely does a thread about tattoos make it 22 posts before the first thread shit. Normally that happens within the first 5.
- Cat Whisperer was just a little less blatant.
Mine was intended as a joke - I hope at this point Anaamika and I have hung around here enough that she’d take it as the humourous ribbing it was intended as.
I see you’re in upstate New York. I have a friend in Ithaca who could give you a recommendation to someone local, if you like.
I have a rather large tattoo on the inside of my forearm, and I’ll just say that the bits closest to the wrist and the elbow were the most painful tattooing I’ve ever endured. To steal a phrase from Craig Ferguson, I saw the baby Jesus. :-/ But everyone’s pain tolerance is different, and pain itself is very subjective. Ultimately, it’s pain with a purpose, and it’s over soon.
Healing isn’t really painful, just sort of achy and itchy, and that’s over soon, too, especially with something as small as you want to get.* Keep in mind that smaller size means less detail, so listen to your artist’s recommendation as to how much area they need to do your design well. Tattoos that are too tiny tend to look weird.
Most artists will quote you a price that includes doing both the artwork and the actual tattooing. Most take cash only. Please remember to tip!
Don’t be afraid to go into a shop and ask any and all questions you may have, including questions about sterilization and aftercare. They’re used to answering questions, they want you to be comfortable with the experience, and this is a great way to find out if you and the artist are a good fit. Anyone who gives you attitude doesn’t want your money badly enough, eh? They’ll let you look through their photo portfolios, which will give you a good idea of what sorts of artwork they specialize in. Don’t be afraid to ask for suggestions, and be open to tweaking. They may have a fabulous design idea that hadn’t occurred to you.
As far as visible tattoos being jobstoppers, that’s going to depend a lot on where you are and what you do. I did hear a comedian say that the translation of the Chinese character on her inner wrist was (paraphrased), “the reason why I don’t get the next job I apply for.” I think the East Coast tends to be less accepting than the West, but who knows? Me, I figure I wouldn’t want to work someplace where the higher-ups were that closed-minded, but your mileage will, of course, vary.
- I didn’t even think about the after-care ramifications of getting a large tattoo on the inside of my dominant arm. I’m a righty for nearly everything, including doing the paperwork after a bathroom break. Made for interesting wiping for a few days. :smack:
I have one on the inside of my wrist, I got it in 2001.
I didn’t think it was particularly painful, about like that rubber band snapping, but everybody perceives pain differently. Afterwords, sunburn about sums it up for accidental physical contact.
I designed mine myself, and the guy added it to his book of available pieces with my permission. IIRC it took about an hour and a half [it has lots of shading] and cost $150 at Flats Tattoo in Connecticut.
You get out of body art what you want to. I will never tell anybody not to get one, though I will caution them to have it not done on the face or hands, so it can be covered up if they need to [and I try to discourage obscenities or neonazi crap, but it is ultimately up to the person ]
Oh yeah! With a wrist tat, be prepared for inconvenience if you get it on your mouseing hand. Haha, forgot about that. Mine is exactly where the desk hits my wrist at work. It didn’t hurt, but getting goey A&D ointment on my desk all the time was icky.
Also, it will ooze lymph and ink, and that’s okay. With my chest piece, I woke up the next morning with a perfect mirror image of it imprinted on the inside of the t-shirt I wore to bed!
If the artist advises you to keep saran wrap on it or to use Neosporin or anything like that, run for the hills. A&D oinment or a plain unscented moisturizer is recommended. I’ve seen shady artists who tell you to keep the saran wrap around it till it stops oozing. So bad! Bacteria breeding ground. They’ll usually put some saran wrap over it when you leave and tell you to take it off in an hour or so though.
Here’s what getting a tattoo on your chest looks like, up close. I look terrified in that one, but I was trying very hard not to laugh–Jeff, the artist, had told me to make sure I try to not talk our laugh, because it’d make my chest move. My boyfriend made some crack about Jeff having his hands on my boobs for an hour or something and I was terrified to laugh. And here it’s about 75% done. Messy, but it cleans up so nice.
My apologies, then. I actually suggested she post this thread, but warned of posts like HowieReynolds’, so I probably read too much into yours as well.
I used a 4x4 gauze pad with curel lotion, the gauze pad mainly to keep the ointment off my desk at work, and keep any gunk randomly contacted at work or out shopping from getting onto the tattoo, it had decent airflow for the 9 or so hours a day for the first 2 or 3 days I did it, then the scab ended up nicely solid and I dispensed with the gauze.
No prob - I thought the girl screaming like she was being sawn in half was so over-the-top, it would be obvious is was meant as a joke. 
I concur on all counts. I just put a clean washcloth on my wrist rest and it was fine until that area got good and scabby. And I woke up with a pretty green spiral on the pillowcase of my “hugging” pillow after my first session. It washed right out without even using any stain treatment.
Neosporin is most assuredly contraindicated for use on healing tattoos; it draws the ink out, pretty much. My artist recommended Eucerin Aquaphor™, which worked well for me. I did use a bit of Bacitracin when I thought it was getting a little inflamed. You don’t want to slather on gobs of anything, really, just enough that you can gently rub it in and keep the scab from getting too stiff, but not gooey at all.
AND NEVER PICK AT YOUR SCAB!
Any artist who either doesn’t have a portfolio or doesn’t want to show it to you until after you book an appointment is not someone you want to work with. Ask about the facilities, their sterile/sharps procedures, references from past work, cost, aftercare, and take note of the facility in general. Is it clean? Are you comfortable with the person who’d be doing the work? Have you seen the results of their work in person on someone? <— Some artists make work that looks great in photos, but may not be great in person or has unintended results. A friend of mine got a tattoo on her lower back that, though beautiful, still gives her sensation issues-- the artist went too deep and she occasionally has nerve pain with certain movements. I agree with the other posters who have mentioned asking people who have good and impressive work about who did their work, how they liked the person, and whether they’d go there again. Also take into consideration that you may find an artist who’s not necessarily the closest good artist in your area; a good artist may not be hard to find, but one that you like and can form a relationship with is great if you think you may ever want more than one small tattoo.
Exactly. I use Curel/Aveeno/After Inked/The Body Shop’s Hemp Hand Cream/any unscented lotion that does not contain vitamin E/shea butter/cocoa butter in it and isn’t formulated for “extra dry skin” as well. One of my desi friends had okay results using After Inked, but mentioned that the oil content of her skin was not as compatible with the heavy grapeseed oil component of the product-- if your wrist skin is similar, you may want to look into lighter products and using less of it so the scab forms but stays soft. My skin is drier in certain areas, so After Inked and the hemp hand cream has been great for me, especially during the summer months. Healing time is different for everyone, but I tend to average 1-3 days for the scab to form and up to 1 week for the scab to come off on its own; your artist should tell you how to care for it during this time period, and follow his or her directions carefully. One of my coworkers has forearm tattoos, and lost a lot of ink because she didn’t follow aftercare advice as given to her-- due to washing it more often than needed, a lot of the ink didn’t get a chance to “set” into her skin during the scab formation process. The resulting tattoos look okay, but not as good as they did when they were fresh.
My artist uses these things, which look like the absorbent pads at the bottom of a package of ground beef-- they are awesome for that hour or so after tattooing to absorb the lymph/blood oozing. As I’m currently in the middle of a largetattoo project*, I find that I have been able to figure out what works best for my skin pretty rapidly. To some extent, your tattoo is like a colorful scrape, and will often feel a bit like it for the first day or so. Also, depending upon placement, you will find that clothing or movements may be really inconvenient or annoying for the first couple of weeks, but you should continue to take care of the tattoo like it’s new skin or a scab for a month or more after tattooing. I put high SPF sunscreen on my tattoos whenever there’s a chance of them being exposed to sunlight, especially with the new stuff, and I keep it covered most of the time-- a large portion of people I know would never know I was tattooed if I didn’t like wearing tank tops while out and about on days off.
*If requested, I’ll take clearer photos later-- last session was a week ago, and covered the lower four snowflakes. When it’s done, the snowflakes will go down one hip and onto my upper thigh, with “wind” in the background.