Once we started turning to tattoo our bodies at a younger stage of our life, most of us had a question- “what will happen to my tattoos when I get old”? Well, having this question in your mind is legit to be precise.
Every organ of our body goes through changes as we get older. So it is inevitable that the aging process is going to affect the tattoos of your body. Even if you take the best care of your skin, your tattoo will change and fade away as you grow older.
If the question “what happens to tattoos when you get old?” ever crossed your mind, then you found the right place to search for the short answer.
So, without further delay, let’s find out how tattoos age.
5 Imminent Things of Your Tattoo Will Go Through As You Get Old
What happens to tattoos when you get old is significant to know and touch up are required with professional tattoo artists as your new tattoo change after a specific period. As you grow older, traditional tattoos age as well.
Hence, to make such a decision for tattoo care is mandatory for the betterment of the tattoo design.
1. The Tattoo will change
The first thing you would see is that the shape of your tattoo is changing after a particular age and on the top as you grow older. Due to the stretching of the loose skin, the outlines of the traditional tattoos change. Moreover, the tattoos will probably lose their initial shape due to sequential skin ages.
To get a tattoo in bolder lines will need to apply too much ink or black ink. The details of the tattoos on your aging skin will have an obscure appearance as your skin loses its smoothness and gets wrinkled.
Our skin is the largest organ of our body. The first signs of the aging tattoo can be seen through the changes in our skin. So this type of change is imminent to get a tattoo as well. Surely, you will be going to face this sooner or later in your life.
2. The Tattoo will fade
Tattoo fading is one of the unavoidable occurrences you will face later in your life. Skin aging or tattoo aging is caused by years of sun exposure, age, body modification, and micro skin damage.
Tattoos change on the upper arm, upper thigh, thigh area, or other body parts, start to fade after 5 to 10 years and a certain age. Even in some instances, it may happen sooner depending on the ink used for the tattoo.
Furthermore, many tattoos of your bicep muscle eventually give out and start sagging after a particular age due to skin changes.
But you can diminish the damage by reducing your exposure to the sun and using a sunscreen every time you go under the sun. Continuous sun exposure causes the tattoos to lose their color and makes them duller in appearance.
However, aging is the main reason behind the fading of your tattoo. As the age of your skin grows and loses its resilience, it can’t retain its shape, promoting the deformation of your tattoo as the ink spreads and loses the vibrant look.
Fading can also occur as a result of weight gain as people get older. Weight gain makes your muscle appear larger and breaks the shape of your tattoos, resulting in fading.
3. The Tattoo will change their size
Due to a lack of elasticity, hydration, and skin age, your tattoos will stretch with your skin, resulting in the change of tattoos’ form and size. Smaller upper arm tattoos tend to get compromised to stretching compared to the bigger ones.
As we stated above, bigger tattoos are more flexible in terms of muscle stretching and deformation, as they will merely seem to get elongated as a result of skin stretching in specific areas.
Saggy muscles alter the size of the tattoo the most. For example, when you grow older the tattoo on your back may appear bigger as the muscle will start to drop its usual size and stretch the skin.
4. The Tattoo will lose their shape
As we said earlier, our skin loses its elasticity, gets wrinkled over time, and reason for natural aging. These drastic changes make our old tattoos lose their initial shape and cause stretch marks.
Additionally, as your tattoo skin ages day after day, and the strong muscles are cooperating to skin stay firm. The touch up with dermatologists are crucial to learning about tattoo late fading.
However, the change of shape is more noticeable in larger muscles of your body that are prone to stretching such as the biceps, the upper chest, abdomen area, thighs, lower back, etc. But the shape change is least visible on smaller tattoos and muscles.
So, before getting inked, decide where you want to get those tattoos on your body, what will be the after-result of the change of your tattoo. Such decisions will play a vital role in the later stage of your life.
This occurrence is inevitable, but the deformation can be lessened by getting a bigger tattoo as they are more flexible to shape change compared to the small ones.
5. The Tattoo will face a lack of hydration
As your skin cells age, it gets drier due to a lack of hydration. As dermatologists said, a lower level of cell renewal, less oil production, chronic exposure to the sun can cause your skin to drier as you grow old.
You should consider these things if you have a tattoo on your body. Regardless of whether your tattoo is new or old, it needs hydration. Better to stay hydrated and moisturize your skin daily.
What to do to keep your tattoo fresh
There are a few ways to get a tattoo, and you can prevent tattoos from losing their shape even as you grow old. The moment you get your body inked, your top priority will be taking good care of your post-tattooed skin, piercings, or body art. Apart from this, you should maintain a good diet and stay healthy to boost the tattoo healing process faster.
If you can keep a good shape of your body even in old age, this will surely reflect well on your tattoos. So let’s introduce you to some of the tips you can follow to maintain your tattoos.
Aftercare routine for tattoo healing
The best way to maintain the vibrant look or bright colors of your aged tattoos and shape is to take care of it from the very moment you get it. The most important part of the tattoo aftercare instructions, routine and healthy lifestyle is giving your skin time to heal.
Think like this- your skin suffers while tattooing your body, so the injuries need time to heal. Follow the tattoo aftercare instruction provided by your tattoo artist.
All the precautions advice given by your tattoo artist will help prevent skin irritation or infection; skin stretching and tattoos remain it look brighter for a long time.
Anyway, don’t overcommit the aftercare routine like cleaning the tattooed area too often. You can clean the small tattoos or other tattoos at least twice a day with gentle soap and lukewarm water.
Apply water-based moisturizer on it to prevent further damage. Avoid touching the particular area too often if you do tattoo recently.
Sun protection prevents the tattoo damage
Protecting your tattoos from UV radiation is another way to prevent your tattoo from fade fading and skin from premature aging. You might know that UV rays or UVB rays gradually harm the skin. The UV rays are the most significant reason for the sun damage to your tattoos.
Applying sunscreen on your skin looks after you from tattoo aging and direct harm from sun exposure. The prominent and branded tattoo shop will tell you everything about what happens to tattoos for sun exposure, the pros and cons of tattoo aging, and aftercare instructions.
Sunscreen is not only important for your tattoos, it has an anti-UV rays ingredient that helps your skin to protect from UV radiation also.
Protect the surrounding area of your tattoos from direct sun exposure with clothing or a bandage; need proper care until they fully heal.
Covering the tattoos with sunscreen will prevent the area from drying and wrinkling. So you can have nice and fresh-looking tattoos for a long time. We recommend you to use sunscreen of SPF50 or 50+ before going out.
Workout for the tattoo healing
The workout will increase your body’s blood flow, which will lead to weight loss and healthier skin.
This will help your muscle to stay in shape even if you age, preventing tattoo deformation. A strong muscle is averse to wrinkles.
Maintain weight to prevent the tattoo faded earlier
Yet your muscle will inevitably sag as you grow old. Proper diet, activity, and exercise will delay organ and skin aging, help to prevent premature organ, and ensure your tattoos stay in shape longer.
Hydration
It is very significant to stay hydrated all the time, so your exposed skin can age gracefully. Lack of water in your body will result in dryness of skin, eventually, that will lead to wrinkling following up with accelerated premature aging of the skin.
It is very significant to stay hydrated all the time, so your exposed skin can age gracefully. Lack of water in your body will result in dry skin; eventually, that will lead to wrinkling, followed by accelerated premature aging of the skin.
Water is essential for health and skin. So, to get the tattoo life healthier, at least drink 8-10 glasses of water every day that immune cells and increase your body’s immune system.
What happens to tattoo skin after the tattoo removal process?
After completing the laser tattoo removal process, the body’s lymph nodes will continue to carry away and digest the new tattoo ink within the first few days. How immune response depends on an individual’s immune system.
Laser treatment is very effective in removing the old tattoo and fresh tattoos.
Patients need to apply ointment to avoid an allergic reaction, skin infection, scars, or tattoo pigment earlier. Tattoo Goo is a trustworthy shop that offers authentic tattoo aftercare products.
It’s better to consult doctors before getting tattooed. A tattoo parlor naturally uses a plastic wrap or bandage after using fresh ink or removing the ink particle.
Final words
We hope you got a firm idea of what happens to your tattoos when you grow old. There is no way you can stop the passage of time or your skin from changing after a certain age.
Drink plenty of water, do the proper activity, take utmost care of tattoos, take vitamin e, regular touch-ups from your skilled tattoo artist are pretty essentials.
Regular exercise will offer a healthy weight and help protect you from the skin aging process before tattoo fading or skin cancer and keep your tattoo looking its best.
