Tat­toos may be more com­mon than ever, but don't take tat­too­ing light­ly. Know the risks and un­der­stand ba­sic safe­ty pre­cau­tions and af­ter­care steps. You could be the proud own­er of a new tat­too in a mat­ter of hours but don't let the ease of get­ting tat­toos stop you from mak­ing a thought­ful de­ci­sion about per­ma­nent body art. If you don't first take steps to pro­tect your­self from pos­si­ble risks, what seems like a cool idea now is less like­ly to turn in­to a source of re­gret lat­er.

How tat­toos are done

A tat­too is a per­ma­nent mark or de­sign made on your skin with pig­ments in­sert­ed through pricks in­to the skin's top lay­er. Typ­i­cal­ly, the tat­too artist us­es a hand-held ma­chine that acts much like a sewing ma­chine, with one or more nee­dles pierc­ing the skin re­peat­ed­ly. With every punc­ture, the nee­dles in­sert tiny ink droplets. The process -which is done with­out anes­thet­ics and may last up to sev­er­al hours for a large tat­too-caus­es a small amount of bleed­ing and slight to po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant pain.

Know the risks

Gran­u­lo­ma: Al­ler­gic re­ac­tion to red ink. Tat­toos breach the skin, which means that skin in­fec­tions and oth­er com­pli­ca­tions are pos­si­ble. Spe­cif­ic risks in­clude:Al­ler­gic re­ac­tions. Tat­too dyes-es­pe­cial­ly red dye-can cause al­ler­gic skin re­ac­tions, re­sult­ing in an itchy rash at the tat­too site. This may oc­cur even years af­ter you get the tat­too. Skin in­fec­tions. Tat­toos can lead to lo­cal bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions, char­ac­terised by red­ness, swelling, pain and a pus-like drainage.

Oth­er skin prob­lems. Some­times bumps called gran­u­lo­mas form around tat­too ink - es­pe­cial­ly red ink. Tat­too­ing can al­so lead to raised ar­eas caused by an over­growth of scar tis­sue (keloids). Blood­borne dis­eases. If the equip­ment used to cre­ate your tat­too is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with in­fect­ed blood, you can con­tract var­i­ous blood­borne dis­eases, in­clud­ing he­pati­tis B, he­pati­tis C, tetanus and HIV-the virus that caus­es Aids.

MRI com­pli­ca­tions. Rarely, tat­toos or per­ma­nent make­up may cause swelling or burn­ing in the af­fect­ed ar­eas dur­ing mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) ex­ams. In some cas­es-such as when a per­son with per­ma­nent eye­lin­er has an MRI of the eye-tat­too pig­ments may in­ter­fere with the qual­i­ty of the im­age.

In­sist on safe­ty pre­cau­tions

To make sure your tat­too will be ap­plied safe­ly, an­swer these ques­tions: Who does the tat­too­ing? Go to a rep­utable tat­too­ing stu­dio that em­ploys on­ly prop­er­ly trained em­ploy­ees. Keep in mind that reg­u­la­tion re­quire­ments and li­cens­ing stan­dards vary from state to state. Check with your health de­part­ment for in­for­ma­tion on lo­cal li­cens­ing and reg­u­la­tions. Does the tat­too artist wear gloves? Make sure the tat­too artist wash­es his or her hands and wears a fresh pair of pro­tec­tive gloves for each pro­ce­dure.

Does the tat­too artist use prop­er equip­ment? Make sure the tat­too artist re­moves a nee­dle and tubes from sealed pack­ages be­fore your pro­ce­dure be­gins. Any pig­ments, trays and con­tain­ers should be un­used as well. Does the tat­too artist ster­ilise nondis­pos­able equip­ment? Make sure the tat­too artist us­es a heat ster­il­i­sa­tion ma­chine (au­to­clave) to ster­ilise all nondis­pos­able equip­ment af­ter each cus­tomer. In­stru­ments and sup­plies that can't be ster­ilised with an au­to­clave- in­clud­ing draw­er han­dles, ta­bles and sinks-should be dis­in­fect­ed with a com­mer­cial dis­in­fec­tant or bleach so­lu­tion af­ter each use.

Take good care of your tat­too

How you care for your new tat­too de­pends on the type and ex­tent of work done. Typ­i­cal­ly, how­ev­er, you'll need to:

• re­move the ban­dage af­ter 24 hours: ap­ply an an­tibi­ot­ic oint­ment to the tat­tooed skin while it's heal­ing.

• keep the tat­tooed skin clean: use plain soap and wa­ter and a gen­tle touch. Pat, don't rub the area dry.

• use mois­turis­er: ap­ply a mild mois­turis­er to the tat­tooed skin sev­er­al times a day.

• avoid sun ex­po­sure: keep the tat­tooed area out of the sun for a few weeks.

• choose cloth­ing care­ful­ly: don't wear any­thing that would stick to the tat­too.

• al­low up to 2 weeks for heal­ing: don't pick at any scabs, which in­creas­es the risk of in­fec­tion and can dam­age the de­sign and cause scar­ring.

If you think your tat­too may be in­fect­ed or you're con­cerned that your tat­too isn't heal­ing prop­er­ly, con­tact your doc­tor. If you're in­ter­est­ed in tat­too re­moval, ask your der­ma­tol­o­gist about laser surgery or oth­er op­tions for tat­too re­moval.