which ointment?

Husband had his third session of his new tattoo on Sunday and has run out of bepanthen. What's the best to use (if any at all) out of sudocreme, savlon or germolene gel?

cheers

Will

Preferably a moisturising cream, it's 3 days in so should be safe enough to leave it a night without anything. Just get some in the morning.

Cheers Will. like E45?
It's irritating him quite a bit

Toots

Well I'd be slow to use sudocrem, and definitely don't use the germolene, it'll sting like hell. You could use the savlon for the night if it's really itchy, I used it once or twice on my last tattoo when I ran out of bepanthen and it didn't do any harm, the itching can get pretty annoying

xo.mary

E45 now do a moisturizer which stops itching. My tattooist said it was okay to use on new tattoos!

ElleEm

You need something to keep it wet, so I'd say Vaseline or something similar. I used Elizabeth Arden's 8 hour cream on mine after the first week or so.
Sudocream and Savlon and stuff only dry it out.

Hellrazer

Johnstons baby lotion.

All I ever use these days for healing.

Vaseline is a no no.

Just Like Heaven

I also heard vaseline was big no. pulls ink out of the skin or something?

Black Sheep

Vaseline and similar petroleum based products are thought to create too thick a barrier, potentially clogging pores and stopping the tattoo breathing and expelling plasma and whatnot. That impedes healing and seems to cause dots of white spots in some people's tattoos when finished healing. I've read references to petroleum jelly 'drawing' out ink but I'm not sure of the science there.

Either way, the use of Vaseline jelly is generally not regarded as best practice anymore.

Bepanthen is probably the optimum product in most people's eyes, but mind you- people have reported being allergic to it also and that's been blamed on the lanolin content (again, clogging pores, although one would wonder if they were slathering on far too much Bep in the first place :pac: ).

More and more I'm coming around to the idea that if the tattoo area is kept clean with warm water and soap then the more bare-bones the after care regime the better. Too much product can just be a vehicle for infection if you're fussing with the tattoo constantly. Keep it moisturised lightly, keep it out of the sun, don't saturate it with water, don't pick it, and in the long term use a sun block.

Thanks for the replies. Have always thought vaseline was a big no alright. He used E45 in the end. It's a week old now and he still finds it sore to touch around his kidney area! Think he is beginning to wish it was finished! he still has about 4 more sessions. I will post pics of it when it's done. It's going to be awesome!