My Tattoo Is Peeling With Ink, Is This Normal?

One of the scariest things about getting your first tattoo is whether or not it will be painful. However, pain is depending on where you get your tattoo, and your tolerance. I can say during the process of going in to get my very first tattoo that I was paranoid about looking like a wimp and flinching when the needle hit my skin, however I felt silly for ever feeling that way once it started. The pain was a 0 on a scale of 0-10. 10 being the most pain.

Besides the pain though, for newbies who do not know what to expect after the fact things can get really scary. Sitting through the tattoo session is the easiest part, and most fail to recognize that.

My very first tattoo looked fantastic for 5 days, and then something bizarre started happening to my skin. I freaked out and thought I was one of those rare cases where the ink wanted to bleed out. However what really was happening was a normal healing process.

The tattoo started to randomly peel in certain areas, I was directed not to touch, scratch, itch, or peel it, and to let it do its own peeling process without any help. This made me freak out because it seriously looked as if the tattoo was peeling away as flakes of the skin contained the actual ink outline.

Fear not though, because underneath this skin your tattoo will still remain. Do not peel the area though or try to lift loose skin off of it, as you could actually cause lifting of the ink, and yes you could loose your ink. Let the skin naturally peel away on its own, or while in the shower. Consider it a snake peeling its skin, underneath the color will still remain, like your tattoo will remain.

This process for me was the most scary process during the healing, as I truly thought my tattoo was coming off.

From here your skin will look a little milky and the color not as vivid, but do not panic, in a few days your tattoo will look bright and vivid with color once the skin is fully healed.

Even after the skin has peeled, avoid itching the area as there could be left over flakes or scabs you cannot see, and you do not want to pull any scabs as ink could bleed.

Always remember with your tattoo that your healing process will not be exactly the same as others, this does not mean something is wrong. If something still concerns you about it, ask your tattoo artist who did the tattoo, only he or she will know the best way to answer your questions.

As far as your tattoo peeling with ink attached to it, this is completely normal, and your tattoo is not peeling off. It's just dead skin.