To plastic wrap or not to plastic wrap your tattoo?

Every time I see someone with plastic wrap taped onto their arm it makes me cringe. I have even watched popular (but stupid) tattoo shows on TV where even those artists are taping plastic wrap around someone. Ouch… doesn’t any of these tattoo artists know anything about the human body?

Try something. Next time you or someone you knows gets a tattoo, hover your hand right above it without actually touching the skin. Then walk into a hospital, find someone with wicked road rash or a nasty wound and hover your hand over it without touching the skin. A finished tattoo is a fresh wound. The needles go a million miles per hour in and out of your skin and can cause some to bleed, but inevitably leaving you with a straight up wound. Therefor, taping plastic wrap causes an occlusive seal around the tattoo, which means that its not letting in anything and not letting anything out.

Think of it this way, spacebagging your wound lets nothing out, all that heat that you feel coming off the skin and the bacteria from the needle shoving its way around, all the blood and sweat are stuck in this one little spot dripping into an open wound, susceptible to any and all kinds of infection.

What should be done is using paper/cotton-y material, possible like what hospitals use, gauze and dressing and such, anything to let your skin and fresh new wound breathe. Don’t have any medical dressings? Use a damn paper towel!

source : http://myttoos.net/page/2/