During Healing Avoid:
Bathing: During the first 48-72 hours, care should be taken while bathing. Soaking in a hot tub is NOT A GOOD IDEA! The hot water will draw impurities (including tattoo ink pigment) out of your skin. Simiilarly, a hot shower or a steam-room will have the same effect -- take a lukewarm shower and minimize your time in the shower with a new tattoo and do not let the shower spray beat on the tattooed skin directly.
Swimming: Swimming in chlorinated pools and salt-water swimming should be avoided for the first week or so (as should soaking in a Jacuzzi, or even your own bathtub at home). While neither pool Chlorine nor salt-water will affect a healed tattoo, both are sources of bacteria & other impurities that could infect your new tattoo. But, after the first few days, the surface over the tattoo (absent scabbing) is relatively impervious and it is OK to swim. If, however, you are scabbing, water will tend to swell the scab, loosen it and perhaps cause some loss of pigment. A much greater danger to your tattoo is the prolonged exposure to SUNLIGHT that is associated with swimming.
Steam Rooms & Saunas: Again - NOT a good idea while your new tattoo is healing. Steam and hot water open the pores of the skin and can result in loss of pigment. But once healed - enjoy! In fact, saunas and steam rooms bring out a luminosity and color in the colored skin that you won't see elsewhere.
Sunlight & Tanning: Without question, the single, WORST thing for any tattoo. While the newer,plasticized inks appear to better at resisting fading, if you spend lots of time in bright sunlight for work or pleasure your tattoo will fade (over a lifetime, not a week). To keep them looking their best, try and keep out of direct and prolonged exposure to sunlight. Just use some common sense. Think of your tattoo as an investment. Only expose your new tattoo to long periods of sun after it is fully healed and then only with a strong sunscreen applied.
THINK AHEAD -- if you are a sun-worshipper and aren't going to change, then perhaps you should consider more seriously getting black/grey or tribal-style work which generally withstands sun exposure much better than color work does. Of course, there's another school of thought -- that "faded" tattoos become more a "part of you" and take on a "lived-in" patina -- that's a "look" too.
Preparation-H: There are stories that recommend using Preparation-H in the healing of new tattoos. Peparation-H is a product marketed in the U.S. for the relief of hemorrhoidal tissue. In a word: DON'T! Dr. Jeff Herndon, resident assistant professor at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College, says Preparation-H should *NOT* be used for Tattoos:
"Preparation-H contains shark liver oil (similar to cod liver oil) and it is used primarily as a carrier of the active ingredients and as a protectent, forming a physical barrier on the skin. While this may be helpful in the healing of hemorrhoids, it provides no benefit and perhaps impeded the healing of new Tattoos. Furthermore, while phenyl mercuric nitrate (another principal ingredient) may have antiseptic properties (similar to mercurochrome or tincture of iodine; neither of which should be used on fresh Tattoos) it possesses very little anti-infective properties when compared to traditional antibacterial agents such as Neosporin and Bacitracin, etc. Its use in such low quantities in Preparation-H is more likely as a preservative. The active ingredient of Preparation-H is the skin respiratory factor and this does nothing to relieve the itching and/or swelling associated with a new Tattoo. Not only will it NOT help your Tattoo, it was actually probably do more harm than good. The product was developed for hemorrhoid tissue only."
Tight Clothing: Again, a little bit of extra care in the first 48-72 hours until a good "skin barrier" has formed will promote faster, cleaner healing. It's only common sense that wearing tight fitting or restrictive clothing that rubs or irritates the freshly tattooed skin is going to lead to scabbing. Additionally, bacteria and other foreign materials embedded in clothing can become a further source of infection for freshly tattooed skin.
THINK AHEAD -- If you are going to your thigh, lower back or buttocks worked on, don't just think you'll wear your jeans home -- bring along a pair of sweatpants or track pants that are loose and breathe that you can wear instead.