My Tattoos - Meanings, Pain, Aftercare and Everything In-between

2019 seems to have brought out a lil bit of a braveness trait that I had no idea I actually had, but yet here I am typing this with 3 tattoos on my body that I've gotten in the past two months. 

Tattoos were something I always wanted but forever knowing how horrendous I am when it comes to pain and thinking that they were always expensive it just was something I always brushed off and would tell myself that I'd get one eventually. Like I was that person in school who'd always whip out a sharpie and draw quotes, hearts and crosses on my arms and hands because I loved how they looked and would think I was gas with my 'tattoos'.

However the 1st of March this year arrived and I found myself inside a tattoo parlour signing a waiver ready to get my first tattoo at the age of 24.

Something I had wanted tattooed on myself for a long time was the number 13, and so for my first tattoo I went ahead and finally got it. On a scale of 1-5 this hurt 0 as it’s so small and it literally only took 3 whole minutes to do. Like I’m not even joking when I say I was shocked when I looked at my arm and realised that the needle was in it like I felt absolutely nothing. There is a few meanings behind this but mainly I class it as a lucky number, it kinda references Taylor Swift and it kind of also references Halloween because so many people treat it as a suspicious number. 

Always throughout life I’ve heard people say ‘tattoos are addictive, you get one and you won’t stop’ and in my head I used to be like how on EARTH could you get addicted to that?! I mean you’re willingly putting yourself through pain why would you enjoy that?! 

…huns it’s true…

I don’t know what it is, maybe the adrenaline or something but literally an hour and a half after getting my dainty little 13 I was straight onto Pinterest looking for inspiration of my next tattoo. 

Which brings us onto the 3rd of April, exactly 33 days later when I walked back into the same tattoo parlour to get this.

So incase you don’t know, I adore Halloween, basically it’s like my Christmas. I’ll decorate, buy all 

the sweets, spend all my wages on more decorations and even dress up. So yeah I love Spooky season and decided to get a tattoo as an ode to my favourite holiday. Featuring a human hand with acrylic stiletto nails (me basically) and a skeleton hand doing a pinky promise. 

So yeah this is just a little ode to Halloween really

As for pain and time, this took 45 minutes and at times it did sting, the inside outline of the human hand burned which wasn’t a nice feeling but I’d rate it like a 2 out of 5 because it wasn’t unbearable just a little stingy. 

Finally a whole 23 days later, the same tattoo parlour saw me again but this time for a little bit of script that I wanted.

Taylor Swift is my favourite singer and last Friday she released her new single 'Me' marking the start of the TS7 era. So I wanted to kind of mark the end of the Reputation era and celebrate the start of the new one by getting lyrics from my favourite song off the Reputation album. I found the font on the Dafont website and fell in love with it because I wanted something that looked Delicate to match the lyrics. 

The longest part of this was the placement of the stencil. Just because of how I wanted it placed it took some time to get it dead straight. The tattoo itself took about 25 minutes and the pain wasn’t bad at all, again just a little sting especially the ‘T’ ‘s but other than that it was fine. I’d say a 1 out of 5 because again it was nothing unbearable. 

As for aftercare every one is different so make sure you follow your tattoo artists after care instructions! 

What I've been using (as advised too) and what's been working for me and its what I've been using on all three of my tattoos after getting them done / during the healing process was washing with warm water (don't leave them soaking in a bath), cleaning with Water Wipes and moisturising with Hustle Butter. 

Something that's new to my after care routine (only currently using on my 13 as its the only tattoo fully healed at the moment) is the Electric Ink Vibrancy Serum which helps keep the ink looking fresh and true to colour. As I've only been using it on my 13 I can't say much yet as it's my smallest tattoo but I will let you know if it helps the larger ones when they're healed. 

If you're thinking of getting a tattoo Pinterest is full of so many ideas and I'm literally on the website everyday looking for more inspiration. Like seriously make yourself a little board to pin everything too because there are just so many ideas! 

Of course I already have my next one planned however its going to be slightly delayed and I more than likely will not be getting one next month (as the last few have happened every month after payday) as I've three concerts planned and a girl needs to fake tan! Shout out to me for surviving 3 whole months without putting tan on. (Something you're not able to do for at least 2/3 weeks after getting a tattoo) 

Have you got any tattoos or are you planning on getting any?