My Tattoo Fell Off!
And this is what my followers taught me that my tattooist didn't...
Can you believe it? I’d never heard of a tattoo falling off before either! But of course, it had to happen to me…
Me and my best friend had been planning to get matching tattoos together for months. Both of us had never had a tattoo before, so as we are both turning 50 this year, we planned to do the obligatory thing, and pop our tattoo 'cherries’ to celebrate our 50th’s together…
We wanted hearts ♡♡
Tiny - actually micro - freckle hearts. On our wrists. To ease us into the tattoo thing you know…
So after lots of research, we booked our appointments at a reputable ‘fine line’ tattoo place in Soho in London. All the celebs go there…so it’s gonna be good right?
Or so we thought!
The day we had them done, I’d been to have a Sofwave facial treatment a couple of hours beforehand, which is painful. Like childbirth painful! So I was dreading having a tattoo done on the same day. They’re meant to be painful too right?
But I felt nothing! And no wonder…
7 days later, (note: I am now back at home in Florida, 4000 miles away from London), as I was getting ready for bed, I looked down at my arm, and my new tattoo was gone!
Not there.
I mean, it was small in the first place. Maybe I couldn’t see it as I didn’t have my glasses on? Plus I was still a bit jet-lagged…So I asked my husband to double check if he could see it lol.
Nope, much to his amusement (he and my boys had already taken the piss about the size of it) he couldn’t see it either.
I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT!
All that planning. For nothing. All that money. £100 to be exact. For nothing!
I actually caught the moment I realised it had fallen off on this Instagram reel that has now hit 99,000 views.
And So The Tattoo Stories Came Flooding In…
“I had a small cat face done on my inner ankle. The tiny heart-shaped nose got a little infected and a few days later, I noticed a little black heart was lying on the bottom of my shower... all that’s left is the outline.”
“Mine floated off in the bath!”
“I had my anniversary date tattooed onto my finger. It fell off in places after 2 weeks. It looks like I’ve drawn it myself with a Biro pen and then washed my hands.”
“Me and my friend did the same...we had I 🍎 NYC and my Apple fell off! Actually turned into a big hole as my skin rejected the red dye.”
“I got a little ladybug on my big toe 30 years ago and the same thing happened... I just have like a black dot on my toe now.”
So Why Did This Happen? 😩
Apparently, our bodies are smarter than we give them credit for. One of my followers said: “The body sees tattoo ink as a foreign substance and wants to get rid of it. If it’s really tiny, your immune system can send out enough macrophages to eat up that ink and expel it through the lymphatic system. Your body was just doing its job.”
Could It Also Be Because Our Tattoos Were Brown?
Me and my friend liked the tattooists’ brown heart because we thought it looked more ‘natural’ than black. So that’s what we chose. What we didn’t know was that apparently brown ink is more likely to fade, and erm, drop off. As another follower wrote:
“My husband and I got matching rings... his was brown and it peeled off too.”
The Fine-Line Reality Check
Then there is the “depth” issue. Many followers said “they didn’t go deep enough.” Others pointed out the “wrist factor,” noting that “that part of the body is weird... the inner wrist just doesn’t hold ink well.”
Someone pointed out that I should’ve gone to a tattooist that specialises in fine lines. Well, I thought they were. The phrase ‘fine line’ is actually in the name of the place - so you’d think they’d be experts.
What About The After Care?
“Sometimes you can catch a scab and pull a bit out - if that’s the whole tattoo and you didn’t care for it well, the whole thing probably got caught and fell out because it’s micro.”
Another warned: “You wash too much. Nothing for a month, 2 months to be sure.”
Well, yes I do wash thank you very much, but I was 100% extra careful around it. Besides, the tattooist sprayed on ‘spray-on plaster’ and advised that that would be enough to keep it soft and ‘safe.’
The £100 Question 💸
Of course, we have to talk about the price. I paid £100, which many thought was a complete rip off! But I also had many professional tattooists step in to explain the cost:
“Many tattooists have a shop minimum to offset the cost of disposable equipment and sterilization.”
“It might be a tiny tattoo that only took a minute, but there is the same amount of stuff used in the prep and clean up as there is for a large tattoo.”
Surely, We Should Have Been Warned?
The biggest takeaway from “tattoo-gate” was maybe that the ‘fine line’ industry has a transparency problem. As one follower put it: “If you went to a reputable artist, they would have told you that the chances of a little tiny micro tattoo staying - especially where the skin is extra thin - is a low percentage. It does not shock me that it dissipated.”
And what about my friend?
Did hers fall off too?
Yes! A few days later…
We both got our money refunded and now we’re planning to have them done again, at a different place in Florida.
A little more prepared!
And hopefully a little more happy…
Any tattoo stories/tips to share before we have another go? I’d love to know about them in the comments 👇🏼