There are many reasons you might want your scars to disappear. Perhaps they remind you of a time in your life or a person you used to be. They might have been a medical necessity. But most people don’t know that many artists refuse to cover scar tissue and some tattoos can’t be covered to begin with! Find out more about how to get your tattoo coverup for your scars!
Can I Cover my Scars with Tattoos?
When your skin is damaged it tries to knit itself together using collagen bonds to form an even mesh. These collagen bonds line up perfectly with each other, or they should. But when this doesn’t happen the skin continues to produce them until the bonds finally manage to connect creating excess collagen and a scar. Tattoos themselves are a form of scar. It is because of the pigment that you don’t see the scar itself but the design.
Scar Coverups Might Cause Keloids
Keloids are the biggest no for tattooing over scars. They’re especially prevalent in dark skin. If you’ve seen someone with a piercing that has a bobble of scar tissue on it, this is a keloid. While it’s more unusual for tattoos to keloid it is possible with darker skin. This happens when a tattoo is healing and instead of leaving a smooth design behind the skin creates a raised scar instead and pushes the ink out. The tattoo will heal eventually but will look like a scarification instead. While this may look “cool” it’s often a great way to end up with a scarry mess rather than a design. If your skin keloids easily consider a simple design or something small that will still look good as a scar for your first tattoo in case. If you try and tattoo over a keloided tattoo then you’ll simply make the scarring worse. This doesn’t apply to tattoos that are simply too deep or raised, while these have scarred because of poor work it does not mean that they can’t be covered, just that the scar will still be textured into the new tattoo.
Make Sure the Scar is Completely Healed!
When tattooing over any other scar it’s important that the scar is healed under the skin as well as on top. Skin takes a minimum of 1-6 months to heal inside. This is even if the top layer of skin has healed over in a couple of weeks. The reason for this is those collagen bonds. If your skin is still producing the collagen bonds it can still cause a scar. Disrupting this process by tattooing the area too soon can lead to a tattoo that either falls out or has a keloid issue. Avoid getting tattooed on any scar less than 1-2 years old. As a rule, if the skin is still pink or purplish you should wait a little longer. Most older scars eventually turn white and these are fine to tattoo over.
Finally to answer the question can I cover my scars with tattoos, yes.
All scars can be covered unless they are keloids! But if the skin is textured, the texturing will not be fixed by tattooing over it. For your skin to go back to being smooth again many people turn to products like Mederma to smooth scars out before getting tattooed so you can’t tell that the scar was ever there. Another alternative is to incorporate the scar into a tattoo. Zipper tattoos that go with surgery scars are quite popular!
