Since we use our hands to interact with the world, you must be extremely careful for the full 2 week healing process. Tattoos below the wrist are extremely likely to lose ink or get infected.

Here are some unique rules that must be followed if you get tattooed on your hands or fingers if you want to ensure a safe and successful heal:

Do not touch or wash your hair or anyone else’s with your hands. If you are washing your hair in the shower, then gloves are the safest option. Tape them to your wrists.

Only use utensils when eating food.

Do not use cleaning products to clean your home. The products will get into your open wounds, causing healing to lengthen, irritation to occur, and ink to be pushed out.

Disinfect all regularly-touched services in your life prior to getting tattooed. This includes but is not limited to phones, tablets, keyboards, steering wheels, seat belts and belt locks, handlebars, light switches, door knobs, car doors, water bottles.

Do not touch used dishes, or hand-wash dishes.

Wash your hands every time you touch something. Wash them when you are home, at work, out in public, after you use the bathroom, after someone else touches your hands, etc.

Do not shake someone else’s hand.

Do not touch or brush your pets.

Be extremely careful with children. They are very dirty by default, which is totally okay, but they also want to touch everything, especially things that they are not supposed to.

Do not wear rings or bracelets.

Do not wear gloves, even disposable ones. You may think that you are being very clever. Your hands will sweat, ink will be lost, and your tattoo will heal patchy. Bacteria love warm, moist spaces, which wearing gloves will provide. Only wear single-use disposable gloves if you have no choice (like if you must wash your hair in the shower), and infection is the greatest concern, and always discuss this with your tattooer.

Even if you follow all of these rules, you may still experience a rough heal, where you lose ink, and the tattoo healed patchy. This means you will have to follow all of those rules over again if you decide to get a touch-up.

It is easy to forget that there are some parts of the world, and even in the country, where having tattoos is still considered taboo, even illegal. It is impossible to cover tattoos on your hands, and difficult to cover tattoos on your fingers. You may be able to wear gloves or band-aids, but that may not be something that you want to do for long periods of time, or may not be appropriate, depending on where you are going. Tattoos on fingers and hands, especially when applied by an experienced tattooer, are extremely difficult to have laser-removed.

You may end up needing to go to a court hearing somewhere in this country where the judge or jury harbors bias against you because you have tattoos that are exposed. This applies to family or civil court as well.

You may travel to another country and be denied service.

You may travel to a conservative part of the globe (or state) and get spit on.

You may get ticketed for having exposed tattoos in a country where they are illegal.

You may (and almost certainly will) be denied entry to spas and bathhouses in Japan.

These are all examples of true stories from folks that have tattoos that they cannot cover.

Lastly, and perhaps the least important thing to consider before getting your hands/finger tattooed, is the pain element. There are a ton of nerve endings in our hands, because they are how we interact with the world! Due to this, getting your hands or fingers tattooed is extremely painful. There is not a ton of space on hands or fingers, so getting every single line perfectly laid down is very important for the integrity of the design. You must must must sit perfectly still!

Please discuss any other thoughts or concerns with your tattooer before making an appointment!

Remember that the internet has tons of highly-edited pictures of tattooed hands! Many of these pictures are fresh, filtered, or photoshopped! Be a smart consumer!