Sanitation & Tattoos: What to Expect When Getting Tattooed

Video Transcript

" Hi my name is Rick Wyckoff and you can check out our website at avatart2.com and I am here on behalf of Expert Village.com and I am talking about tips and techniques for getting tattooed. Disease control has been an increasing concern around tattoos. Some of the things that you need to look for when you go into a shop and sit down to get tattooed: wearing and changing gloves are very important. Using cellophane bags around things like soap bottles, clip cords and tattoo machines so that basically when they are wiping and handling their customer in their chair and hand picking up a soap bottle and putting soap on paper towel and things, putting ointment on the tattoo, etc., not to mention handling the damaged skin, their hands, their areas are going to become contaminated. Typically the surface area should be glass or some other non-porous cleanable surface. They should be using surface disinfectants. This is a product called Viroguard which is very good for disinfecting their area. All the things that come into contact with their customer should be single-use in sterilization pouches, the needle and their tube. Their pigments should be going into disposable ink caps just like this to get thrown away each time they get used. Single use razors are also important. They should be pulling out a brand new razor to shave the area. Also shaving the area before the tattoo even though it is not particularly hairy does reduce your chances of infection and the little tiny hairs that are difficult to see are the kind of dangerous ones because they can get pushed underneath the skin and cause an ingrown hair on your tattoo. But also they found that shaving an area before you do any kind of procedure to it drastically reduces your chances of getting an infection. The main thing is cross contamination: changing gloves in between things. If they have to pour more ink and they are using dirty gloves and handling bottles and telephones and things in their area with those dirty gloves on and touching you, that is something you should be concerned about. Also, the type of glove that is being used these days as opposed to even 10 years ago. Latex, around petroleum products which is typically used during your procedure tends to break down latex making it basically ineffective as a barrier. These latex free nitro gloves don’t break down when they come into contact with petroleum or other products. You might think that is more of a concern for the artist handling people with gloves that aren’t providing a good barrier but basically what is on their hand is also coming through the glove onto you so it is also a concern for you. Non-latex gloves, non-porous barriers are disposable between every procedure and surface disinfectant as well as single use disposable needles and tubes. "