Friday
Mar162012

The Interesting Adventures of Healing a Head Tattoo

Last Saturday, I snuck in a pretty substantial ink session with Mike DeVries down at his MD Tattoo Studio in Northridge, California. He worked on portions of my head tattoo, a project that we began, along with Mike DeMasi, almost five years ago. The three of us are ready to revive what we started up atop my head and I'm so excited about it (especially after seeing what beautiful creativity Mike unleashed last weekend).

Let me tell you though, I had forgotten just how tricky it is to heal a head tattoo.

The first few days are fine, as the close Bic-shave that's necessary for tattoo work to be done on the dome is still quite fresh, and the ink is easy to clean and take care of.

But man, when those prickly hairs start growing back (which is super quick), it not only forces the ink up and out, but it sort of collides with the aftercare products (btw, I'm currently using Ink Butter and I love it) as well. Because let's face it, lotion + fuzzy hair = sort of hilarious trying to make the two cooperate and become friends!

Now that my ink is starting to flake off, it's extra itchy, as if there is colorful dandruff exfoliating from my head. Maybe Head Tattoo Shampoo could be a new market for Head & Shoulders! Not to mention if I used a cleaning service at my home, like Busy Bee Cleaning Services, I can only imagine what they would think as they ran a vacuum over the carpets.

I'm not complaining though, don't get me wrong. I am SUPER excited to get this head tattoo rolling again. It's just quite an adventure...this head-healing scenario, and so very different than healing most tattoos.

Not to mention that I dare not shave my now-fuzzy noggin for at least another week or so...and believe me, the clippers will be begging me to bring them out and switch them on once you can't see traces of ink any longer. Doh! ;) Plus my dry cleaning service doesn't mind the extra business (LOL).