What Have You Been Doing with Those Hands?
After applying tats all day long my fingers would look like I had been working in the garden all day long and forgotten to wash my hands.
This was embarrassing enough but being away from home and having to go to a restaurant and eat dinner afterward was even more so. Some of the looks I would get from the other patrons while dining, made me feel like hiding under the table. I really felt like standing on the table, lifting my hands above my head and screaming “They’re clean! I’ve been using rubbing alcohol all day and there isn’t a germ alive on these fingers.”
Latex or rubber gloves did not work for me. I found them to be too hot and cumbersome to work in. An item that I used and was so enthused about fizzled with the rest of our customers. I found finger gloves to be the answer to my problem. These were little rubber covers for the tips of your fingers. You would roll them on over the tips of your index finger and thumb and they fit snuggly on your fingers. They went past the first knuckle on your finger, stayed in place and I thought, worked well for applying tats.
They kept your fingers clean too. We provided a package to each customer who purchased a system. In all the years that we carried them, no customer ever reordered them so we quit offering them and did not reorder. I guess I was the only one who liked them.
I do have some suggestions that helped me keep cleaner looking hands while applying tats. First of all, start with clean hands. Keep your finger nails clipped short. Next, apply hand lotion generously to your hands and fingers. When you get a break, wash your hands and use a scrub brush to clean as much ink off of your hands as possible. Don’t forget to reapply hand lotion each time you wash or sanitize your hands.
By following these simple steps I have found that most of the ink comes off the first day. By the second day my hands looked pretty close to normal. They were not as clean as they were when I used finger gloves but a close second.
