Tag: HIV

Cleaning tattoo machines is an important procedure in the tattoo process. Due to the specialty of the tattoo machines, common ways of cleaning such as using warm water or rag to polish the whole set won’t actually do good. Because on the part of tattoo machines, the -dust- for them means invisible bacteria left over the device after treating each customer. Experienced and professional tattoo artists take highly priority of cleaning procedure, namely sterilization, which you may follow through below steps to gain a little more extra knowledge for developing your tattoo career:

Usually, tattoo artists take professional apparatus called ultrasonic cleaner to finish the procedure. When starting cleaning your tattoo machine, you need to first disassemble three parts of the tattoo equipments, grip, tube, and tip. Due to different tattoo machines, unloading order may differ according to the machines. Before the real sterilization these parts need some basic cleaning, like using clean water and antibacterial soaps to wash lightly the surface. After preparedness has been done, full the ultrasonic cleaner tank with proper sum of water to hold the disassembled parts. And then turn on the clean machine for about 5-10 minutes. Take out the grip, tube and tip to dry, naturally, or by special clean rag.

Finishing all the advance-phase preparation, we may enter into the sterilizing step of the cleaning. At this process, we use apparatus called autoclave sterilizer which could kill living HIV that ultrasonic cleaner could not kill. Take three bags to contain the grip, tube, and tip respectively, and make ready three sterilization trays for the three bags. Please keep note that the bags should be sealed off and have their respective sterilizer tray. Some autoclave machines may have one tray itself and only allow you to sterilize one at each time. Then do not try to take all by once.

Pour the autoclave sterilizer with distilled water about up at the middle, and start the machine for 1-2 hours for the sterilizing. When it’s ready and the indicating number turns to 0, you could put your gloves to take the bags off and dry them.

Basically, this is the whole procedure of cleaning the tattoo machines. Please note that do not wash the whole set in water, which will get the coils rusted by soaking the water.

The popularity of tattoos has never been higher with many well-known celebrities continuing to set the trend by getting cool tattoos done. However most people do not fully understand the risks involved when you decide to get a tattoo done.

One of the main risks people are aware of is the risk of getting an infection when the tattoo is being made. Signs of an infection are redness and swelling around the area of the tattoo. To avoid this you should go to a fully licensed and professional tattoo parlour, and always make sure they use sterilized tattoo equipment and needles. You would think that every tattoo artist uses sterile equipment, but sadly it’s not always the case.

The very fact that there are tattoo artists out there who don’t use fully sterilized equipment means there is still the risk of a more serious blood-borne disease being transmitted. So it is possible that you could pick up a disease such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV in extreme cases.

Another related risk is that of skin disorders or granulomas. These occur when the body rejects foreign objects being inserted into the outer skin, such as tattoo ink. As a result of which, little bumps will often appear around the area where the ink has been applied.

The recipient of the tattoo may also suffer an allergic reaction when having a tattoo done. This is extremely rare but can occur in some instances. There’s no way of knowing if you will suffer from an allergic reaction to tattoo ink until you actually get a tattoo done.

Finally there is always the risk that you will not be happy with the tattoo you have chosen in later years. If this turns out to be the case and you consider having your tattoo removed, then this brings additional health risks. Even with modern laser technology it can still be a complicated process and there is no guarantee that the procedure may be a complete success. In fact very often several treatments are required in order to successfully remove the tattoo, and even then you may be left with skin discolouration or scarring.

Overall though these risks mentioned above are very rare and most people who get a tattoo done encounter no problems at all and end up very happy with their chosen design. As long as you choose a professional licensed tattoo artist and take plenty of time to choose the perfect tattoo design, then the benefits of getting your chosen tattoo done very often outweigh the risks.

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