Well, today is the day. You finally decided to go ahead and get that tattoo. You spent a lot of time looking through page after page of flash, and then you spent even more time trying out and testing a variety of tattoo designs until you finally found the perfect tattoo for you. Maybe it is a tribal armband tattoo, a swallow tattoo, or, the most popular tattoo design of all, a butterfly tattoo. Whatever the design, at this point in the game you know just what you want it to look like, and you can wait to enjoy it for the rest of your life. You hurry into the tattoo studio well hydrated and having eaten breakfast, of course - and settle down in the tattoo chair. About forty-five minutes later, your wonderful, perfect tattoo is done. You cannot wait to show your friends, your family, your neighbors, and the world. After all, part of getting a tattoo is telling the story, and now you have a beautiful tattoo and a great story to tell.
That gets you thinking: what happens to a tattoo when your body changes shape? The answer is: a variety of things. The good news is that by taking good care of your tattoo and giving some serious thought to where you put that tattoo before you get it, you can keep your tattoo virtually free of all the negative impacts of weight fluctuation “natural or otherwise” that your body will undergo over the course of your life.
The first thing to think about when considering weight fluctuations is placement. If you have not yet gotten a tattoo, think carefully about how and where you gain and lose weight. This involves several factors. If you are a girl, then you need to factor in the reality that gravity will at least temporarily impact some of your assets. Even if you swiftly repair this natural sagging, it will impact the dimensions of your tattoo when your skin stretches over time. This means that a tattoo on the buttocks or on the breasts in particular may elongate over time, particularly if your gain or lose a substantial amount of weight as most women do multiple times over the course of a lifetime. The important thing to focus on when selecting a place for a tattoo is where on your body weight gain impacts you least. For example, the hip area is a good one for many women “unless, of course, your family is prone to saddlebags, large deposits of fat on the outer hip and upper quadriceps areas” The small of the back is generally one of the last areas on the body to stretch if you gain weight, and weight loss does not leave this skin area sagging. Shoulders are also ideal for keeping a tattoo in tact for many years.
Of course, you cannot rule out the potential that you have as a woman for becoming pregnant at some point in your life. Should this happen “deliberately or otherwise” a belly button tattoo or a tattoo in your lower pelvic region is almost certain to undergo some major changes. If you already have a tattoo in this region, there are steps that you can take to prevent these changes from being permanent. They are the same steps that you would take to prevent stretch marks, and they mostly involve massaging the area and keeping it well moisturized and hydrated. It is important to understand that above all else, weight gain accompanied by stretch marks regardless of the reason for the weight gain can destroy a tattoo more thoroughly than just about anything else. This is because a stretch mark is a tear in the skin that actually becomes a scar. Sometimes they can be tattooed over, but other times the new tissue will not accept tattoo ink, and it can be very hard to ever return the skin to its original form.
If you are a man, then your weight gain issues with your tattoos will probably be slightly different. Men are less likely to tattoo their stomach areas, but if you do have stomach tattoos, then they will be highly susceptible to stretching should you gain weight as you age. Unlike women, men's upper arms also stretch and shrink far more as they gain and lose muscle and far. This area is prone to stretch marks and sagging, so if you do not plan on keeping those guns forever, then you should probably avoid that armband tattoo you've been considering because it could get pretty wavy as you age and lose muscle mass or gain fat. The calf area on men is good for tattoos that are relatively impervious to weight gain, as is the shoulder area and the upper arm, as long as the tattoo does not completely encircle the arm.
Getting a tattoo should be a fun experience, but you also want your tattoo to be fun decades down the road as well. Putting a little forethought into the location of your tattoo and how your life in the future could affect the look of that tattoo will go a long way toward making sure you love your tattoo for the rest of your life.
