What is a blow out?
What is a blow out?
Anyone who hears the word "blowout" may initially think of exhausting oil or natural gas. But the word has a different meaning in the tattoo industry. Here it stands for escaping color. So for color that does not stay exactly at the intended skin, but runs.
What does a blowout look like?
Blowouts can occur in different shapes and strengths. Some may hardly be noticed, others are very clear. In most cases, a blowout makes the tattoo stained, blurred and uneven. The color sometimes spreads into places that are outside the frame stuck for the tattoo. Just think a coloring book in which you accidentally get too close to the border with the ink and the color then runs over the edge. This is how most blowouts look. In addition, mixing can occur under the colors, so that, for example, a clear red with a lush green mixtures into an ugly brown.
How does a blowout come and how can it be prevented?
A blowout is basically always the result of a little efficient use of the needle. For example, it may be that the tattoo artist brings the ink with the needle into deeper layers of the skin than it would actually be necessary and sensible. The pressure difference and the cell structure in these deeper layers cause the color to go. This creates unwanted and unforeseen color gradients in the different layers of skin. Most of the blowouts can be seen immediately after the tattoo artist's needle caught the wrong layer of skin. Sometimes it can take up to a few weeks and the escaping color becomes visible while your skin heals.
Of course, the customer's connective tissue also plays a major role in blowout. Here it depends on whether the customer has a weak connective tissue and the pigments used cannot keep themselves in the line specified by the tattoo artist.
There are many causes of the errors in the handling. We want to discuss the most common part in the following part.
There are many causes of the errors in the handling
- As already mentioned, the tattoo artist puts the needle too deep in the skin or puts the puncture angle incorrectly so that the color runs out of the needle into the neighboring tissue. This happens above all inexperienced tattoo artists and can also be very painful for you as a customer. In certain skin areas, even for experienced tattoo artists, it can be quite difficult to avoid such blowouts. So it doesn't always have to be the tattoo artist when a blowout occurs.
- If the skin is very thin, it can also easily lead to a blowout. On certain parts of the body, the skin is thinner than in other places. Unfortunately, this also increases the likelihood that a blowout will form there. This can affect, for example, the skin on the back of the knees, on the back of the hand, the back of the hand, crowds of arms, wrists, ankles, fingers, toes or back of the foot. There are also a higher risk of a blowout.
Here, too, an experienced artist tends to cause a blowout, but it is never excluded.
- The skin is stretched too much when tattooing. In order for the needle to be set in the right place, the skin must be pulled slightly tight to ensure a flat surface - this is normal. However, if the skin is stretched too much or even dragged, especially at a thinner area, it can happen that the puncture angle is no longer correct and this in turn can lead to the color.
What can I do so that there is no blowout?
Preventive there is only a reasonably safe way: Find a tattoo artist that is as experienced. It is best not to choose any of the parts of the body that are difficult to stab. Make sure that the skin is not stretched too much during the procedure. But even despite these precautions, you can never be 100 % sure that no mistakes happen. If the mishap is there, there is unfortunately no more correction option. However, it is possible to make the blowout appear as inconspicuous as possible by posting. Ask a good tattoo artist whether he can make a so-called cover up for the "problem zone" in order to make the color runners as inconspicuous as possible.
