Four things that actually ruin a tattoo
Sun, before it is healed. A sunburn on a two-week-old tattoo can take pigment with it permanently. After week six, sunscreen forever: UV is the single largest cause of fading over a twenty-year life, ahead of everything else combined.
Soaking. Showers are fine from day one. Baths, pools, hot tubs, rivers and the ocean are not, for three weeks. Submerged skin softens and a softened scab lifts, and it takes ink with it.
Picking. Obvious, universally ignored at about day six when the itching starts. The flakes are carrying loose surface pigment and are on their way out either way; pulling them early pulls settled pigment as well. Slap it, do not scratch it.
Too much ointment. The most common one and the least expected. A thick layer traps moisture, the skin macerates, and healing slows. Thin enough to look barely applied is right.
What to text us about
Redness spreading outward past the tattoo after day three. Heat coming off it. Yellow or green discharge, as opposed to clear or straw-coloured. A fever. Any of those, text the line and then see a doctor: we are tattooers, not clinicians, and the honest advice at that point is a clinic.
Everything else, ask. Nothing is a stupid question on the thirty-day line and we would much rather answer at week two than see the result at week eight.