is this infection, allergy, or overworked skin?

Hi, ive been tattooing for a month and this was my first time doing color and this was this person's first tattoo. I never had this type of reaction before and some areas of the tattoo is peeling off more than usual, can someone please let me know what may have occurred and if the swelling/redness would go down? I told the person it might be an infection and to seek medical help and that they may offer a cream. The bow area is also supposed to be yellow but in the after pic, it looks really murky. would it heal this way or will it fade off where i can just redo/touch up these areas? I used an ink mixing tool for the first time and I'm paranoid the mixing tips were the reason of infection or may it have been to do with the way i was packing color? But i used a very light hand since I didn't want to risk overworking her skin, at around 6-7 volts. Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

link to pics, before/after

I'm not an expert on tattooing colour, I usually never do them (avoid them). But recently I did one, and like you I was really putting effort in being light handed. The tattoo turned out like absolute shit however. I discussed with the client and she said she treated it the same way she always does (she has many tattoos, and I've tattooed her several times before). I asked her if she used a thick layer of cream - no. Had she used numbing cream when I tattooed it - no.

But when she came back for a touch up she "admitted" (she's a very nice person, I don't want to sound too harsh) she probably had put on too much cream. After the touch up she avoided the cream, and it healed fine.

FRESH:



HEALING:





HEALED:




After the touch up it looked perfect. No problems at all. There's a limit to number of photos in a post, I'll post them in a new comment.

2nd SESSION HEALING:





Especially the yellow looks a little muddy due to her just having taken of the Dermalize, but other than that it all looks just fine.

I really would like to recommend Dermalize or likewise (which my client refused the first time). That way you have more control of the healing process the first crucial days. Because the client can't mistreat it as much - they can't infect it, they can't over lube it, they can't have their cats, dogs or babies accidentally scratch it, they can't haves clothes irritating it.

I recommend the client to keep it on for 5 days. I know there's a lot of discussion going on about the time period, but 3 days you definitely can recommend them to keep it on.

However - this applies to smaller tattoos like the one you did, and the ones I did. For bigger colour tattoos, there may be a lot of plasma gathering beneath the plaster/bandage, and then you or the client would have to apply a new bandage after 24h. That's a while different story, that's out of my knowledge

Sorry for this long rant! Hope it helps though

Just asking, but it looks to me like she had her eyebrows done with PMT?
Because if she did, those sure are heaaavy.
Now that I'm looking at them in my photo editor, I'm pretty sure she did something to them, either PMT or painted, they seems to have like a rectangular beginning with the same width up to close to half of her brow.



I would have done them like this. What do you think? (btw, sorry for the somewhat OT, it's just that I also do PMT as you know).

Yes, I do know you do PMT, and yes I totally agree her eyebrows look pretty unnatural, and yes, your suggestion looks so much better. I don't recall us talking about her eyebrows, but when I look at my photo I definitely agree, she did something to them. You can see strokes in the eyebrows. Hard to say if they are painted or if it's PMT, but I'm no expert

Hi Rebecca, the tattoo you have done does look like it may be infected, but can be fixed after it has healed. I wouldn't stress too much about how it got infected, it looks to me that it is on the forearm and that area is a very common area to get infected, mainly because of clothing rubbing against the tattoo. Most infections are due to improper aftercare and not any fault of the tattooist. As for the mixing sticks for mixing your inks, if you use them as a single use item, you shouldn't have a problem.

MalligaMallan said:

2nd SESSION HEALING:
...

View attachment 28006

Especially the yellow looks a little muddy due to her just having taken of the Dermalize, but other than that it all looks just fine.
...

Click to expand...

To redo the yellow, what I would do is tattoo a very fine line of white on the yellow just along side the black lining. Let it cure and then do the yellow again.
Taking the white as your border it will avoid the yellow going into the black and make it muddy. After curing you won't notice the white.
I've seen a Colombian artist do this and the result was absolutely amazing.

Also I don't now if you did the teeth and eyes with white (doesn't look so to me), but you could do those parts at the same time.

MirandM said:

To redo the yellow, what I would do is tattoo a very fine line of white on the yellow just along side the black lining. Let it cure and then do the yellow again.
Taking the white as your border it will avoid the yellow going into the black and make it muddy. After curing you won't notice the white.
I've seen a Colombian artist do this and the result was absolutely amazing.

Also I don't now if you did the teeth and eyes with white (doesn't look so to me), but you could do those parts at the same time.

Click to expand...

Miranda, thanks for the advice, but I wasn't the one asking for help in this thread I already redid "my" tattoos a long time ago, and they healed fine the 2nd session. My comments were an effort to help the thread starter.

Go to the top of this thread and help that person instead!

After doing some editing to get the two pictures more equal in terms of overall color/brightness/contrast etc. The result is like this:


What draws my attention is the fact that the two lower left leaves are practically gone, just as the border of the card in the middle and the upper part of the right upper rose.
Looks like you didn't have enough depth.
The bowtie and lower stems looks like they're blistered, like you said from infection. That should be left alone until it has completely cured.
Yeah, there's definitely some retouching work needed here, but not until everything is completely cured, no blisters, no swelling, no redness, just have patience.

btw, for comparison photos it's best to use the same camera, lightning, distance and position. Otherwise it is very hard to do any comparing.
Also, if you did this tattoo in one session, be aware of the fact that color filling (specifically with white / yellow) may leed to color-bleeding as it touches the black lines. I prefer to do color filling after the lines have cured. Some artists do it the other way around, first the color filling and when that has cured, the black lining. The advantage of that method is that you can correct small error like overshooting with your color.