Tattoos can fade, blur and change for a variety of reasons. Over time, any tattoo will succumb, to some extent to the same factors that wear on your body itself. The sun can fade tattoos and make them appear blurry both because the sun can fade the ink and it can also wrinkle and weather skin, causing the media of the tattoo itself to change. You can certainly minimize the changes that your tattoo undergoes over the course of its lifetime by using sunscreen to protect it from sun fading, getting the tattoo in a place on your body that is not traditionally susceptible to stretching and using the newest and best in ink and needle technology. However, despite all of your efforts, even the best planned tattoo will ultimately experience some changes, and when that happens, you may decide to get a tattoo touch up.
Tattoo touch ups come in several forms. One type of touch up is really almost like getting a new tattoo. In this case, the touch up really involves covering up or changing the old tattoo. In the past, cover-ups were literally tattoos that covered up old tattoo designs. They tended to use dark inks that would go over the older, lighter ink and often people actually opted for solid bands or geometric shapes just to get rid of the old design. Now, however, a good cover-up tattoo can work far more like a tattoo touch up or a re-design. If you want to remove a name from your tattoo design or you really wish that you had gotten a more elaborate or ornate tattoo the first time around, you can work with a tattoo artist to actually incorporate the old tattoo design into your new tattoo. It is a touch up only in that you are brightening the old tattoo or in some other way using it in the new design rather than simply getting the new tattoo design somewhere else on your body. You should prepare for this type of tattoo touch up by looking for the perfect tattoo design as if you were preparing for a new tattoo, but then working with your tattoo artist to work the old tattoo design into the new tattoo design.
If you loved the way your tattoo used to look, but are disappointed that the colors are fading or blurring, then you will love the way that new tattoo ink technology stays over time. If you have been putting off getting your tattoo touched up because you are afraid it will just start to blur again, then now is the time to put those fears aside and start getting your tattoo touched up so that you can once again enjoy showing it off rather than dreading people's curious inspections when they are not quite sure what they are looking at. A variety of ink and inking techniques have come along in the past decade or so that enable tattoo artists to brighten up old tattoo designs and add more details or redefine old details using brighter inks and detail-oriented needle groupings. If your blues are fading, your reds running and your yellows non-existent, then there is no better time to get your tattoo touched up.
There are some things that you should do when getting a tattoo touched up. Remember, it can be more painful than your original tattoo because the artist will not be spending a lot of time in any one place on your tattoo. This means that your body will not get used to the pain of the needle in the same way that it would if you were getting a new tattoo. Just be prepared for this, and do not be alarmed if the sensation is slightly more unpleasant than you remember your original tattoo being. Also, when you are getting a tattoo touched up, the your tattoo artists experience is very important. Tattooed areas do not react to pigments the same way that pristine or virgin skin does. As a result, a tattoo artist needs to have some experience in touching up tattoos so that they can advise you about what is possible and what is wise when it comes to brightening and redefining your tattoos. Finally, you need to be very clear about what you are hoping to get out of your tattoo touch up. Many artists are unwilling to do touch ups on other artists work unless they are adding something of their own or the original artist is unavailable to do the work themselves. Make it very clear if you want to add detail or keep your design exactly the same so that once your tattoo touch up is completed, you have your perfect tattoo design back in place just the way you want it.
