Please help- ink falling out, I’m desperate!

Hello, I’m new here and new to tattooing. On fake skin saturation looks great. I’ve been working on a inner wrist tattoo on myself and I just can’t get the ink to stay with lining and with color. Looks great and after it heals and peels there is hardly any ink left. I am using the mast tour pro. Usually 8v for lining and 7v for color packing. Intenze inks, zupper black and inkeeze glide. I have tried different voltage, angles, speed. I try to go as slow as I can but it really does hurt a lot. I’m getting bleeding so I feel I have to be going deep enough? I tried riding the tube for lining but I don’t like not being able to see where the needle is. So I float the needle but I don’t hang out more than about 1.5-2mm. I do try to ride the tube for shading, small slow circles with only about 1mm hang. I go over, wipe and go over again etc. I have tried different needles, I was using mast needles 12 9RL for lining and a mag and 5RS but switched to kwadron 12 5RLLT and mag LT to see if that would make a difference but no. I have redone this tat several times now, let it heal and peel and try again and then just so disappointed when the ink falls out. I haven’t notice any scarring so far but idk how much more my skin can take. For aftercare I followed traditional but now I use saniderm initially and then keep from drying out with inkeeze. Please help I’m desperate and I don’t know what else to do =(

If you could post a photo, would be a help for us to advise you.....ink dropping out/fading very quickly is usually because the ink isn't deep enough, also because you are tattooing your own inner wrist , how are you stretching the skin? Without proper stretch the needle won't be penetrating the skin properly....why not try tattooing your leg so you can stretch the skin with one hand and tattoo with the other...see how that works for you.

Thanks for the reply. For stretching I will bend my hand back and I have also used tape to pull the skin back. I did a small one on my opposite arm first near the wrist but not quite in the middle and it turned out ok. Some ink has fallen out but not nearly as much as the problem one. I don’t have premium yet but I will soon.

What Pete said!
Tattoing is problematic if you can't use both hands.
I personnaly don't know any exact way to tell if the ink gets into the skin, it depends on the needle size, the skin type/aspect, the area, the stretch...
But if you got everything correct in your technique, the needle speed matching the hand speed, the angle, the stretch, the inkflow, you should be okay.

Be careful, some sad experience happenned to me, after my first tattoos, i had a long time with no clients, due to Covid lockdown.
6 months passed and around 50% of my tats went greyish because i've been too smooth!
I now know that it was mostly a lack of depht and/or a weak stretch.
Sometimes you think it's good visually, but it's definitly not!

Send us some pics !

Peace,

DKJ

Agree with all technical advice above.

However, the other factor that can massively impact on pigment retention in the skin is the quality of the ink. I’ve literally seen well-packed tattoos virtually disappear due to cheap and/or counterfeit ink.

Unless you can assure yourself that your ink is legit and of good quality, usually the best you can do is buy from a reputable supplier, then keep this factor in mind.

Just because it says Dynamic or Intenze on the label, doesn’t mean it’s legit…they have great label printers in some parts of the world. There are a few videos floating around giving advice on identifying ‘some’ of the counterfeits. These are useful (if for nothing else) to make yourself aware of the reality of this scam…it happens.

whippet said:

Agree with all technical advice above.

However, the other factor that can massively impact on pigment retention in the skin is the quality of the ink. I’ve literally seen well-packed tattoos virtually disappear due to cheap and/or counterfeit ink.

Unless you can assure yourself that your ink is legit and of good quality, usually the best you can do is buy from a reputable supplier, then keep this factor in mind.

Just because it says Dynamic or Intenze on the label, doesn’t mean it’s legit…they have great label printers in some parts of the world. There are a few videos floating around giving advice on identifying ‘some’ of the counterfeits. These are useful (if for nothing else) to make yourself aware of the reality of this scam…it happens.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I did get the ink directly from the intenze website so I know it’s legit.

DKJ said:

What Pete said!
Tattoing is problematic if you can't use both hands.
I personnaly don't know any exact way to tell if the ink gets into the skin, it depends on the needle size, the skin type/aspect, the area, the stretch...
But if you got everything correct in your technique, the needle speed matching the hand speed, the angle, the stretch, the inkflow, you should be okay.

Be careful, some sad experience happenned to me, after my first tattoos, i had a long time with no clients, due to Covid lockdown.
6 months passed and around 50% of my tats went greyish because i've been too smooth!
I now know that it was mostly a lack of depht and/or a weak stretch.
Sometimes you think it's good visually, but it's definitly not!

Send us some pics !

Peace,

DKJ

Click to expand...

Thank you, I don’t know how to post pics without going premium. I will soon when I get paid again. This venture started last year when I had more funds to do so. As far as depth, I know part of the problem is it hurts so bad I am probably stopping at a more shallow depth because of the pain. I’ve tried the numbing products and they just don’t work well on the wrist. Or…. I read that if the skin is overworked it can push out the ink? Is this correct? I noticed on the last go there was an area where quite a bit of ink was pooling up under the saniderm. I know some is normal but maybe I’m getting it in there but it’s being pushed out? Or does that only happen in the epidermis layer and not the dermis? And as far as stretch, yeah I’m using tape etc but that area doesn’t seem to have much stretch ability to begin with so I didn’t think it would be an issue. I have a smaller existing tattoo there I got years ago so I know my skin can take and hold the ink.

DKJ said:

What Pete said!
Tattoing is problematic if you can't use both hands.
I personnaly don't know any exact way to tell if the ink gets into the skin, it depends on the needle size, the skin type/aspect, the area, the stretch...
But if you got everything correct in your technique, the needle speed matching the hand speed, the angle, the stretch, the inkflow, you should be okay.

Be careful, some sad experience happenned to me, after my first tattoos, i had a long time with no clients, due to Covid lockdown.
6 months passed and around 50% of my tats went greyish because i've been too smooth!
I now know that it was mostly a lack of depht and/or a weak stretch.
Sometimes you think it's good visually, but it's definitly not!

Send us some pics !

Peace,

DKJ

Click to expand...

I also noticed sometimes the vibration would change. Not in my tattooing hand but in the skin itself that is being tattooed. I feel the vibration more, as if it’s traveling to nearby areas. Is this a sign of correct depth or going too deep?
And I hear about with color/shading they reference light layers etc and barely sweeping the skin. But then how is the ink going deep enough? I basically try to ride the tube when color packing. thanks

JamieFXart said:

I also noticed sometimes the vibration would change. Not in my tattooing hand but in the skin itself that is being tattooed. I feel the vibration more, as if it’s traveling to nearby areas. Is this a sign of correct depth or going too deep?
And I hear about with color/shading they reference light layers etc and barely sweeping the skin. But then how is the ink going deep enough? I basically try to ride the tube when color packing. thanks

Click to expand...

Shading, yes you go by layers, meaning you will speed up your motion so there are no lines but dots. Meaning you're putting 10% of ink on a definite area. One more layer and there you have a 20% of ink into the skin, each layer will give you more saturation.
Remember that a line is only some connected dots.

Packing is where you want 100% ink saturation everywhere. 100% black, red, blue, whatever.
In this case you want to be sure that the depht is at minimum 1.5 mm, and you can ride the tube.
Slow and patient, going in many different angles and motions, stretching well are some needed aspects of packing.

Peace,

DKJ