What happens if I get sick on day of appointment?
If you are sick. Please don't get tattooed when you are sick.
We know you’ve had your appointment for months and you may feel better today but there are many reasons to not get tattooed when you’re sick.
When you’re sick your body is trying to fight a virus and you need your body at it’s best to fight this off. If it’s trying to heal your tattoo, which is a wound, at the same time then it’s going to take forever for you to heal your tattoo and to get better from your cold. Your pain tolerance will also be lower as your body is distracted by the cold or flu and already working to try to help you feel better so that great endorphin rush that we all wait for to bail us out of the tattoo pain has already been running for however long you’ve been sick, therefore it’s not going to kick in as usual. So, pretty much your tattoo experience will probably not feel so great. In extreme cases this may even trigger fainting or seizures.
In being sick and leaving your house, you are now spreading cold or flu viruses in the tattoo studio. Multiple people every day are having their skin opened up in the studio. The skin is the number one defense against viruses like cold and flu. So now for the next few days everyone who gets tattooed will have a great potential of getting sick themselves. We will also be sitting very close to you for at least ten minutes to five hours breathing the same air as you so I'm pretty much guaranteed to get sick. If you did wait for months to get the tattoo that also means that your tattoo artist is booked for months. Taking a few sick days for me when being booked for months means I will be coming in to work on my days off since it means rescheduling around an average of 5-7 clients per day (consultations and tattoos). And all the people who had to be rescheduled had been waiting for their appointment for months as well.
It’s not really fair to anyone (yourself included) to get tattooed when they are sick. Please just notify me via email or phone. I really don’t mind getting as I don’t want to get sick myself. Your deposit (in most cases, because a hangover is not being sick) will be transferred to your rescheduled appointment. The studio needs to maintain a clean and healthy environment for everybody that comes into the space. Please do your part to help me attain this goal.
Are there health risks?
Lilith Tattoo is blood borne pathogen certified studio. All our needles and cartridges are new and sterilized, only used once, and then disposed of in a sharps container. All reusable items that do not enter the skin and are either covered in plastic and then either sterilized or disposed of. The studio is the safest possible environment to get tattooed at.
That being said, there are always health risk with tattoo procedure. When you have an open wound there is always a chance of infection. Being diligent about cleanliness and aftercare will greatly benefit you.
Are there any medical/ physical conditions that will prevent me from getting tattooed?
Yes. We have to consider the most extreme possibilities when deciding to tattoo someone or not for everyone’s safety. There is always a chance of infection any time the skin is opened. Because of this the studio have policies to not tattoo people who are pregnant, breast feeding, have severe acne on the intended tattoo site, have heart conditions or are hemophiliacs.
Can you tattoo over scars?
This depends on if the scar is still healing. If it is, then it’s a good idea to wait until it is healed. Scars can take a long time to heal if they are deep (healing can take anywhere between 6 months to 3 years). Tattoos should not change the texture of the skin so covering up a scar with a tattoo doesn’t mean you won’t still see it. The only way to know for sure is to set up a consultation appointment and let us take a look at your scar. We should be able to tell you at that point if it’s a good idea or not.