How To Tattoo Yourself?
Part 2 Part 2 of 3: Tattooing Yourself
- Sterilize your equipment. The main risk of a home tattoo is the risk of infection.
- Load the needle with ink to get started. When you’re ready to start tattooing, dip your needle into the ink and position the stylus so that your hand is
- Push the needle into your skin.
- Outline your design.
- Continue filling in your tattoo.
- Keep the stylus clean.
Contents
Is it hard to tattoo your self?
You’ll End Up With a Surface Tattoo – If you’re looking for a temporary tattoo stick to henna and lick ’em stick ’em options. If you do your own tattoo you’ll most likely only scratch the surface. The proper tattooing process penetrates 1/16th of an inch into your skin.
That may not sound like much, but it’s actually five whole layers of the epidermis. When doing the tattoo on your own, a lack of experience not to mention your own pain receptors will keep you from going as deep as you need to.
A DIY tattoo will fade much earlier that one done by a professional.
Can you give yourself a tattoo at home?
Download Article Download Article If you can’t afford a professional tattoo or you don’t have access to a tattoo parlor, you can give yourself a tattoo at home without a tattoo gun, using what is sometimes called the “stick-and-poke” method. This process can be dangerous, however, and if it turns out badly, you’re left with a permanent reminder. Be sure you know what you’re doing and make sure to follow all of the safety warnings and sanitation requirements before you try this yourself.
- 1 Buy or assemble a home tattoo kit. The main components of any home tattoo kit are needles and ink. Only use tattoo needles that haven’t been used. Tattoo ink is the only type of ink you should use, but not always easy to find. India Ink is commonly used as calligraphy ink but is the only ink that is not tattoo ink that can be used as tattoo ink. Don’t use pen or marker ink! [1]
- Home tattoo kits are the safest option, are inexpensive, and include both supplies and instructions.
- Find a reputable brand of tattoo ink to ensure it doesn’t contain any toxic ingredients.
- Don’t use sewing needles, straight pins, or safety pins. They are not sterile, even if they are new. It is extremely dangerous to use any of these objects to tattoo yourself. You may end up in the hospital. They don’t hold the ink well and generally aren’t the right type of needle. You need to be as professional as possible if you are going to do this yourself. [2]
- Don’t use old needles. Don’t share needles. Doing either of these will put you at serious risk for infection. Also, be sure to safely dispose of the needles when you’re done.
- 2 Set up your station. You’ll need a few other things before you start putting needle to flesh. Grab some cotton thread, a cup for water, and rubbing alcohol. [3]
- Keep a non-permanent, non-toxic marker around for drawing potential tattoo ideas. [4]
- It’s a good idea to keep ink caps, a shallow bowl, or saucer handy to pour India ink into. Ink caps are inexpensive and can help prevent you from wasting ink. Sterilize with rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide that is 91-99% alcohol.
- It’s important to make sure everything you use is clean. Wash any bowls or saucers you’ll be using in hot, soapy water and peroxide/rubbing alcohol, and then cover them with plastic wrap. For extra protection, wear gloves that are very well sterilized when handling any of the supplies you’ll be using. Wash gloves (if using) and hands multiple times throughout the whole process.
- 3 Clean and shave your chosen area. Wherever you decide to tattoo yourself, clean it with soap and warm water. Shave the hair off in the area about an inch larger than you want your tattoo to be.
- After you shave, sterilize your skin with rubbing alcohol. Dab it on with a cotton ball and make sure it’s evaporated before continuing.
- 4 Draw the design on your skin. Trace or draw your desired tattoo in the place you want it to go. You can have someone else do it for you if you want, but take the time to get it how you want it. This image is all you’ll have to go on once you start. You can also use stencil paper and stencil gel to make it more accurate.
- Since you’ll be tattooing yourself, make sure the place you choose is easily. You WILL be poking for a few hours. Awkward or hard to reach places on the body, such as your chest or shoulder, are never good ideas for stick ‘n’ pokes on yourself.
- Stick ‘n’ pokes work much better with simple and tiny tattoos. If you want a complex tattoo, you’re better off going to a parlor.
- 1 Sterilize the needle. The best way to sterilize the needle before using it is with flame. Hold the needle over the flame of a candle or a lighter until it glows. Make sure you hold the other end with tongs, or you’ll burn your fingertips. [5]
- Once the needle is sterile, wrap it in cotton thread. Start about 1 ⁄ 8 inch (0. 3 cm) away from the tip and wrap the thread back and forth about 1 ⁄ 4 inch (0. 6 cm) up the needle until the thread has formed an oval shape. This will absorb some of the ink as you dip your needle into the saucer. [6]
- 2 Start poking. Dip the needle into the India ink and then poke it through your skin, leaving a small dot. There may be some blood after several layers of poking, but there shouldn’t be much. If blood is dripping/excessive, stop immediately and sterilize. Hold a clean paper towel, not cloth, onto the tattoo until it stops bleeding.
- 3 Start working your way along the lines. Stay inside the line of the tattoo design you’ve drawn, filling it in with tiny punctures. Use a cotton swab or a rag to wipe away any blood or excess ink. [7]
- The skin may swell up a bit as you poke it which may cause the resulting tattoo to appear spotty. You may have to do touch-ups when the swelling goes down if you want smooth lines throughout the tattoo. Wait to do touch ups until after the tattoo is completely healed, which can take up to two months.
- 4 Clean the tattooed area. When you finish the tattoo, wipe down the area with soapy water. Throw away any remaining India ink in the ink cap and needles. They are no longer sterile. Use a new needle and a new saucer of ink if you plan on doing any touch-ups in the future.
- Avoid cleaning a fresh tattoo with alcohol — use soap and water, instead.
- 1 Bandage your new tattoo with saran wrap. Don’t use a cloth or band-aid as they can absorb some of the ink and fade it faster. Don’t use any ointments or lotions for the first week of healing because they can clog the tattoo and puts it at risk of infection. [8]
- Leave the wrap on for 1-3 hours, but no longer than 6. [9]
- 2 Keep your tattoo clean. Remove the initial wrap and gently wash the area with warm water and non-scented soap. Don’t scrub, and only wash the tattoo with clean hands. [10]
- Don’t soak your tattoo and don’t run it under hot water. It won’t feel nice, and it take the ink out of your skin. [11]
- Avoid picking at the tattoo as this could cause some of the ink to bleed out, causing messy lines and even scarring.
- Make sure to remove the bandage and wash the tattoo after a couple of hours.
- 3 Apply lotion to your tattoo. After the swelling goes down and the skin starts to scab, switch to a plain, unscented lotion. Most professionals recommend Lubriderm or Aquaphor. Keep the layers thin. Your skin needs to breathe so it can heal properly.
- Moisturize your tattoo 3-5 times a day depending on the size of the tattoo. If your skin starts to look dried out, use a small amount of lotion. [12]
- Don’t apply anything that’s too greasy, like vitamin E, aloe, or Vaseline.
- 4 Let your tattoo heal. For the first week or so be mindful of your tattoo. It’s going to scab over and you’ll need to take extra care to keep it clean. In addition to washing it and keeping it moisturized, you’ll need to avoid certain activities. [13]
- Keep your tattoo out of direct sunlight, as this can cause the ink to fade. It will also burn like a bad sunburn.
- Avoid pools of water such as baths, hot tubs, pools, lakes, oceans, etc. They are full of bacteria, which can lead to infection. [14]
- Avoid any activity that is high-contact or induces excessive sweating, like working out. [15]
- Wear loose clothing so your tattoo can breathe. Tight clothing prevents this.
- 5 Watch out for infection. Be on the lookout for redness or excessive scabbing around your tattoo, as well as any oozing, or swelling. These are all signs of possible infection. [16]
- You can minimize the risk of infection by keeping your supplies clean and taking care of your tattoo. Still, it is possible your tattoo could become infected. If you suspect that your tattoo has become infected, consult your physician. [17]
- Make sure that you aren’t picking or scratching at your tattoo, either.
Add New Question
- Question Is it 100% permanent or will it go away completely after a few years? Kiara Hamed is a Tattoo Artist based in Dallas, Texas. She has over nine years of tattoo designing experience. She received her Tattoo Artist Certification in 2010 and a BS in Computer Information Systems from Clark University Atlanta in 2013. Tattoo Artist Expert Answer It may fade over time but it’s not guaranteed to go away completely. Tattoos are permanent.
- Question How far apart should the pokes be? Kiara Hamed is a Tattoo Artist based in Dallas, Texas. She has over nine years of tattoo designing experience. She received her Tattoo Artist Certification in 2010 and a BS in Computer Information Systems from Clark University Atlanta in 2013. Tattoo Artist Expert Answer Try to make them as close together as possible so you cover the entire intended area. Otherwise, the tattoo will be splotchy.
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Why you should not tattoo yourself?
Getting any tattoo carries some health risks. However, performing your own tattoos puts you at greater risk of: contracting serious infectious diseases, including hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV. contracting severe skin infections, including bacterial infections such as ‘golden staph’.
Can you tattoo yourself with a needle and ink?
What is a stick and poke tattoo? – Also known as hand-poked tattoos, stick and poke tattoos are created by dipping a needle in ink and manually poking the skin with it. While the technique is certainly more beginner-friendly than machine tattoos, that doesn’t mean it’s any less legit — they’re just as permanent and have a style of their own.
- “I do think hand-poked tattoos can look just as nice as machine tattoos,” Vivien Su, a 21-year-old part-time tattoo artist in Singapore told VICE;
- She started hand-poking last year, while the country was in lockdown, and recently opened her own studio;
Vivien likens hand-poked tattoos to “drawing on a sheet of paper,” and machine tattoos to “drawing on your iPad. ” While machine tattoos will probably give a cleaner look, she thinks that both offer different effects.
How deep do you go with a tattoo needle?
Just How Far Does The Needle Go? – Now that you know a little more about the machine and the needle, it’s time to discuss the third essential piece of the puzzle—your skin. The tattoo needle goes through 1/16th of an inch of skin. That might not sound like a lot of skin, but it is really going through five sublayers of the epidermis, the dermal layer, and also the top layer of the dermis.
Among these layers is a collection of sweat glands, hair follicles, connective tissue, fat, and blood vessels. During a tattoo session, the needle passes through the epidermis and epidermal-dermal junction, opening a passage in the 2mm-thick dermis.
The dermis is ideal for a couple of reasons. It is far enough not to bleed out and isn’t exposed. Knowing this, the tip of the tattoo needle is minutely adjusted to ensure that it enters the skin to the correct depth. If you were to look at a tattoo needle in the machine, you will see that it sticks out no further than 2mm.
What is the correct needle depth for tattooing?
So, Where Should The Needle Go? – The tattoo needle should go into the dermis layer of the skin. This layer lies in the middle, and is the perfect spot for ensuring the ink will stay in the skin, and not ‘bleed out’ as the tattoo heals. The epidermis is not a good ink location since it is too exposed and too outward, while the hypodermis is too deep into the skin, which means the ink won’t be as visible and the pain during tattooing would be twice as intense.
Also, if the needle penetrates the hypodermis, the client will most certainly experience an infection. So, how deep, to be exact, should a needle go into the skin? The answer is – approximately 1/16th inch deep into the skin.
This means that the ink will be placed exactly between the 2mm of the dermis layer. If you’re wondering how a tattoo artist knows where the dermis layer is in the skin, we’ve got you covered with that as well. Before the tattooing process begins, the tattoo artist adjusts the tattoo machine and the needle in regards to the parameter of the dermis layer location.
So, the dermis layer is approximately 1/16th inch deep into the skin. With that knowledge, the tip of the tattoo needle is adjusted to only enter the skin at such depth, not a millimeter shallower or deeper.
This means that the tattoo needle should not stick out the tattoo machine more than 2mm, or less than 1mm.
Can I use pen ink for a tattoo?
Pen Ink – With the number of art stores and online warehouses that you can purchase from, pen ink should never be an option for tattooing. Pen ink is easily accessible and cheap. Still, it is not meant to enter your body in any way, shape, or form. Pen ink is highly toxic and unsterile.
Can I use pen ink for a stick n poke?
Use India Ink – Joe Raedle/Getty Images News/Getty Images Do not use just any old ink for your stick and poke. Ink, like the ink from your pen, is not sterile and can be highly toxic. A non-toxic ink, like India ink, would be your best bet. It’s natural, carbon-based, and less likely to cause infection.
Do tattoos shorten your life?
Tattooing Yourself For Beginners
the MPR take: – Having a tattoo may mean an earlier death, says a new report in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. Investigators compared the deaths of people with and without tattoos and found that people with tattoos appeared to die earlier than people without (mean age of death: tattooed: 39yrs; nontattooed: 53yrs).
Does the Bible say no tattoos?
Tattoos have been around for millennia. People got them at least five thousand years ago. Today they’re common everywhere from Maori communities in New Zealand to office parks in Ohio. But in the ancient Middle East, the writers of the Hebrew Bible forbade tattooing.
Per Leviticus 19:28, “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves. ” Historically, scholars have often understood this as a warning against pagan practices of mourning.
But language scholar John Huehnergard and ancient-Israel expert Harold Liebowitz argue that tattooing was understood differently in ancient times. Huehnergard and Liebowitz note that the appearance of the ban on incisions—or tattoos—comes right after words clearly related to mourning, perhaps confirming the original theory.
And yet, looking at what’s known about death rituals in ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Israel, and Egypt, they find no references to marking the skin as a sign of mourning. They also note that there are other examples in Leviticus and Exodus where two halves of a verse address different issues.
So that could be the case here, too. What tattoos were apparently often used for in ancient Mesopotamia was marking enslaved people (and, in Egypt, as decorations for women of all social classes). Egyptian captives were branded with the name of a god, marking them as belongings of the priests or pharaoh.
- But devotees might also be branded with the name of the god they worshiped;
- Huehnergard and Liebowitz suggest that, given the key role of the escape from Egyptian bondage in ancient Jewish law, the Torah originally banned tattooing because it was “the symbol of servitude;
” Interestingly, though, they write that there’s one other apparent reference to tattooing in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 44:5 describes the children of Jacob committing themselves to God: “One shall say, ‘I am the LORD’s’… Another shall mark his arm ‘of the LORD.
‘” Here a tattoo appears to be allowable as a sign of submission, not to a human master but to God. Ancient rabbinic debates produced a variety of different theories about the meaning of the prohibition on tattooing.
Some authorities believed that tattoos were only disallowed if they had certain messages, such as the name of God, the phrase “I am the Lord,” or the name of a pagan deity. Talmudic law developed around 200 CE says that a tattoo is only disallowed if it is done “for the purpose of idolatry”—but not if it’s intended to mark a person’s enslaved status.
Can I donate blood if I have a tattoo?
Can I donate blood after getting a tattoo? – Donating a pint of whole blood took about 45 minutes — less time than it took to get most of her tattoos — and she potentially saved three lives. Finn said she would have donated sooner but had once been told she had to wait a year after getting a tattoo.
“I went to donate blood once in college but was told I couldn’t because of the rules,” Finn said. Those rules have changed. Most people can donate blood immediately after getting inked, as long as the tattoo was applied at a state-regulated entity that uses sterile needles and ink that is not reused.
Colorado regulates tattoo parlors; only Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania do not. If you’ve gotten inked at a Colorado tattoo parlor, you can donate blood immediately.
How do you stretch your skin when tattooing yourself?
What type of pen ink is safe for tattoo?
Posted on September 07 2020 Here’s a quick fire guide for those looking to become part of the stick and poke world! Enjoy. What is a Stick and Poke? A stick and poke is a DIY way to create tattoos. it’s a modern version of what people have been doing for years, having a go at creating their very own designs! What do you need for a Stick and Poke? You will need a needle, thread, skin, ink, and all the precautions to make it safe and sterile.
(things like boiling the needle, wearing protective gloves, using alcohol on the skin etc. ) What needle should I use? You can use a normal sewing needle but a tattoo needle works the best. We recommend not using a hollow piercing needle or a safety pin.
Try to be sensible! What ink should I use? Tattoo ink is the best, but non toxic india ink (such as Higgins, Speedball or Winsor and Newton) works well also. These are all easily available on the internet. Stay away from pen ink and inks that may be toxic.
Other inks may work, but if you want to get the most from your design and it be safe, tattoo ink is definitely the way to go. How long will these tattoos last? Depending on how deep you poked and the type of skin it was applied on, they should for a really long.
Although this is contradicts popular opinion, you should not think of these as temporary tattoos. How deep should I poke? Our opinion is that you should never exceed 1/8 of an inch. You should feel a pop of the skin while you’re doing it, when you do, don’t go much past that point.
- You’ll quickly see the results if you’ve gone deep enough so don’t rush it;
- Don’t overdo it! You don’t want to damage the skin or bleed too much during the process;
- What should I do for after care? Keep it clean with anti bacterial soap;
If possible, also try to stay out of direct sunlight too. Generally, the aftercare is very similar to a professional tattoo..
Is Bic pen ink toxic for tattoos?
Summing It Up – Pen ink is very rarely toxic and unless you ingest a lot of it, you should be fine. If some symptoms do appear, look for medical help. Play safe and don’t try any tricks with pen ink and tattoos. Not only it won’t look pretty, you can get a very bad infection and you don’t want any of that. So do try to be always careful and have fun with your inks! Back to the Blog 
.
How much does tattoo gun cost?
Tattoo Gun Cost – If you already have access to some supplies, you may only need to buy a tattoo gun. The average cost for a tattoo machine is $400 to $900, and that doesn’t include the cost for other tattoo supplies. You’ll get an excellent quality tattoo gun for that price, though.
