Well, let's address the elephant in the room. Is it okay to have alcoholic beverages before or after getting a tattoo? The short answer is "No". Medically speaking, alcohol has the effect of a blood thinner on our body. Now, because of blood thinning, you tend to bleed more and more, even for the smallest puncture holes caused by the tattoo needles. Now, we are not saying that you will be completely drained out of blood during a tattoo session. No, that will never happen. So, let's try to understand what the real problem is.

Why is it a bad idea to have alcohol before getting a tattoo?

• Visibility issues: While tattooing, your tattoo artist already has to be extremely careful to work through the patches of extra ink. Now, we have mentioned, alcohol thins out blood and causes excess bleeding. This means, there will be more secretions out of the tattooed area, further compromising the visibility of the artist.
• Suboptimal healing: If you bleed too much, then the blood can mix with the ink, make it diluted, causing your tattoo to look faded. Also, the blood can flush out some of the ink that has already been deposited under the layers of your skin. So, when your tattoo is healed, the ink might be gone from some of the places, making it look patchy.
• Compromised judgement: A tattoo is something that you carry for the rest of your life. So, it's very important that you have a clear mind in a tattoo studio. Because, the artist will need your inputs multiple times during the process. Starting from the approval of the design, the application of stencil, the size and placement, you will be required to make a lot of responsible decisions. Also, once the tattoo is done, you will need to pay very close attention to the aftercare instructions provided by your artist.
• Awful feeling: Fighting the hangover itself can be difficult enough. If you get tattooed while you are intoxicated, you might end up feeling very sick and tired. It's definitely not a nice experience to endure.
• Refusal: With all the reasons listed above it's not hard for you to realise that you don't really end up with a very nice tattoo in case you are drunk. But, when people end up with bad tattoos, they have a natural tendency to blame the artist. Also, alcohol makes you very fidgety, making it hard for you to sit still throughout the tattoo session. Which in turn, can be very distracting for your tattoo artist, rendering further degraded quality of work. All of this can ruin the reputation of a tattoo artist. So, the moment they realise that you are intoxicated, they refuse your tattoo request.
• The myth: There are beliefs that alcohol makes your experience of getting tattooed easier, as it reduces the pain you have to endure. Well, this may be true, or may not be. The effects may even be different from person to person. In the end, it's just not worth it to have any alcohol fuelled adventures while getting tattooed because the negative effects are just too many.

How about having alcohol after the tattoo is done?

• Once the tattoo is done, you may feel like, the hard day is over and let's get wasted. Well, this is not at all recommended. Your new tattoo will ooze out blood and plasma for around 48 hours. Now for similar reasons as explained above, if you drink within that period of time, again it will cause excessive bleeding. This may cause the healing process to be delayed. Also, the tattoo might look faded and patchy once healed.

We hope these guidelines were helpful for you. If you still have doubts you can always get in touch with us. Thanks for reading.