How Long Do You Wait To Swim After A Tattoo?
2 weeks You need to avoid submerging your tattoo in water or keeping it wet for a prolonged period of time. This means no swimming or sitting in bath tubs, hot tubs, pools, or open water for at least 2 weeks (or as long as your tattoo artist recommends).
Contents
Can you swim after getting a tattoo on your face?
Despite how pervasive tattoos are these days, they’re still kind of a big deal. At the risk of sounding like your grandma, getting inked with that work of art is a procedure that can actually be quite risky, which is why it’s so important to follow tattoo guidelines to a T.
As a report published earlier this month details, ignoring them can be fatal. In a definite worst case scenario, an unidentified 31-year-old Hispanic man died after ignoring tattoo artists’ warnings not to go swimming with fresh ink, reports the Daily Mail.
Five days after getting a cross tattoo on his calf, the man reportedly went for a dip in the Gulf of Mexico, where he contracted a bacterial infection. A day after exposing his ink to the ocean, he developed a fever, chills and a nasty rash near his tattoo.
- Despite treatment, the infection ultimately killed him;
- Warning: the images are graphic;
- According to tattoo guidelines, you’re supposed to wait two weeks before swimming in the pool or ocean to allow the ink to heal — up until that point, your tattoo is still an open wound and needs to be cared for like one;
Submerging your wound in water, which is often swimming with all different types of bacteria, can lead to some serious infections. The bacteria in this case, was a particularly nasty flesh-eating strain called Vibrio vulnificus, according to the official report published in BMJ Case Reports , which affects the immune system and can be contracted by exposing an open wound to seawater or by eating raw shellfish.
- Even with aggressive treatment from doctors, a pre-existing liver condition made the man more susceptible to developing sepsis from the infection and he ultimately died two months after entering the hospital;
Daily Mail.
How long should you wait before remodeling a tattoo?
Some tattoo artists say that waiting for two weeks is enough. However, the safest bet would be waiting from 4 to 6 weeks to ensure that the tattoo is completely healed and that there’s no need for a rework to be done. Some tattoo artists are conflicted on this opinion.
What happens if you Soak Your New Tattoo in water?
Your tattoo is a fresh wound that needs to be kept clean and looked after during the entire healing process. Submerging your tattoo in water for long periods can cause significant damage to your new tattoo by affecting the ink underneath your skin before it’s had a chance to heal.
How long does it take for a tattoo to heal?
How Long Before You Can Swim With a New Tattoo? – Most of the time, a tattoo needs to fully heal before you can safely swim. How long that takes varies from person to person, but many tattoo artists recommend anywhere from two to four weeks. When you get a tattoo, you’ll be sent home with a bandage over it.
After a few hours, you can likely remove the bandage and wash off the excess blood and ink. Use your hands to gently wash it with light warm water and antibacterial soap, then let it air dry in a clean environment and apply the aftercare cream.
As the tattoo heals, flaky skin and scabs will form. As the scabs flake and fall off naturally, a new layer of skin will heal underneath. When there’s a new layer of skin, that’s when you know you can safely swim. Throughout the healing process, you’ll also want to avoid baths for many of the same reasons, but continue to gently clean the area, air dry, and use the aftercare cream.
