Summer is my favorite time. I was born in July and I am a total summer baby. Parks, beaches, camping, hiking, heat and humidity-I love it all. What I don’t love is being a PMU artist in the summer. Although sun exposure is detrimental to our skin (and tattoos) all year long, it is particularly harmful in the summer-mostly because we are outside more often and exposing ourselves to the sun, and depending on where in the world you are, the summer sun is stronger than the winter months.
How the sun affects our skin:
Sunburn is a radiation burn, caused when the ultraviolet (UV) rays of sunlight damage DNA in the upper layer of skin cells. The sun emits three kinds of UV radiation – UVA, B and C.
UVC is mostly absorbed by the earth’s atmosphere, but UVA and B rays reach the ground and can penetrate unprotected skin. UVB penetrates the epidermis, the top layer of the skin, while UVA goes deeper.
The skin of people who are sensitive to light can’t protect itself from UV radiation for long. In very fair-skinned people, UV radiation starts becoming harmful after only about 5 to 10 minutes.
All types of sunburn, whether serious or mild, can cause permanent and irreversible skin damage.
Once the cells of the top layer of skin (called keratinocytes) detect DNA damage in themselves, they begin producing molecules to attract immune cells into the skin. This causes the skin’s blood vessels to leak into the spaces between cells and other skin structures.
It’s this extra fluid and the swelling it causes that lead to the red skin, hot sensation and painful sensitivity of freshly sunburnt skin.
Immune cell invasion begins while you’re still sitting on the beach, but increases about an hour after you come in from the sun. The process peaks 24 to 48 hours later, which is why the redness and painfulness of a sunburn can keep developing for a couple of days.
Some of the immune cells start cleaning up skin cells in self-destruct mode, while others release chemicals that further damage weakened cells. Their actions may also trigger a kind of allergic reaction that makes the skin itchy.
How does this affect PMU and other tattoos?
Tattoo colors are a powder pigment (iron oxides, organics, etc) in a liquid carrier (water, alcohol, glycerine) after the carrier is absorbed by the body the powder pigment is left in the cells. The body will always recognize these pigments as foreign bodies, and therefore you are always at risk of the immune system attempting to “cleanse” the invader. For the most part, the pigment is trapped in the dermal cells and remain relatively permanent due to the perpetual nature of dermal cell regeneration, however when the skin is damaged (due to uv exposure) the body’s immune system activates and removes the pigment containing cells.
What about sunscreen?
Sunscreen, which contains organic chemical compounds such as octyl methoxycinnamate, octyl salicylate, and ecamsule, relies on a chemical reaction to absorb UV light and convert it into heat, which is then released from the skin, On the other hand, sunblock contains mineral ingredients like titanium dioxide or zinc oxide that physically block UV rays. So the main difference in sunscreen and sunblock lies is the way they protect the skin from UV rays. Sunblock is so named because it literally blocks UV rays by forming a physical shield, while a sunscreen contains chemicals that absorb UV rays before your skin can.
Sunscreen only works when it’s absorbed by the skin, therefore it needs to be rubbed in. But you can simply slather sunblock on, since it acts as a physical barrier. You do have to apply sunblock evenly, though, since UV light can hit any exposed parts of the skin, no matter how small. Since sunblock isn’t rubbed in, it normally leaves a white cast on the skin, while sunscreen disappears completely.
Since sunblock completely blocks the suns rays it is effective in protecting the skin from damage and pigments from lightening-but most people are not going to walk around with solid white cream all over themselves all the time they are out doors. Sunscreen helps however any exposure to the sun will affect pigment color.
So even if I’m wearing sunscreen my tattoos will still fade?
Yep. The technical term for color fading is photodegradation. There are light absorbing color bodies called chromophores that are present in colors. The colors we see are based upon these chemical bonds and the amount of light that is absorbed in a particular wavelength.
Ultraviolet rays are one of the causes of fading because they can break down chemical bonds and fade the color in an object. Other major contributors to fading include visible light and solar heat. Pigments have a rating called colorfastness which in short is how resistant the pigment is to fading. In a good quality formula, the manufacturer will look to blend colors that have similar color fastness to ensure that the color fades evenly and doesn’t shift (meaning one color fades first leaving an unwanted undertone color like green or orange behind).
When pigments have similar colorfastness they will fade at similar rates, however the actual pigment particle will remain in the skin making future retention more difficult. I can’t stress enough how important this is when discussing sun exposure with your clients.
In my neck of the woods, our ladies LOVE to tan. They tan in tanning salons during the winter, lay out all summer and frequent strong sun vacation spots like Florida and Aruba. Since they love to tan so much, getting them to wear sunscreen, let alone sunblock is nearly impossible. As I’ve explained above, the damage they create to the skin causes loss of pigment and the exposure to the sun fades what pigment particles are left behind. Altogether this creates a perfect storm of circumstances, so that means I see a lot of ashy, faded and blurred brows, which are very difficult to correct-mainly because no matter how much I correct the color they are still going to go back out into the sun, and each time I am tattooing the skin I am packing (or attempting to) more pigment into already saturated skin (whether you can see the color or not).
Our ladies here also seem to LOVE big, thick, solid, black brows. *Cringe* We all love doing soft, natural, delicate strokes, but I definitely have a section of clientele that push for bigger, bolder, darker-much to my chagrin. Add in all the sun damage and repeated tattooing and you’ve got some pretty saturated brows. So what can you do?
First, you need to decide if you are even going to accept clients that sun worship at this level. It is going to affect the quality of your work, and some artists simply refuse to work with a compromised canvas.
Next, you must insist that your sunworshippers do not tan or burn prior to their appointments because you need good, healthy skin to tattoo into, otherwise the body’s immune system will remove pigment as it cleans up the damaged cells. I typically make my sun ladies touch up in the spring.
Educate your clients on the effects of sun on their tattoos. Insist that they wear sunscreen at a minimum and suggest big sunglasses and a hat when outdoors. (and then cross your fingers that they will listen).
Set reasonable expectations. When I have a client who has been tattooing her brows yearly for the last 8 years, is heavily saturated and has very damaged skin…and then asks me for “natural hairstrokes” I do my best to explain how and why that’s not possible and lay out some options for how to come to a compromise. This often includes removal of previous tattooing and abstinence from the sun. If she is unwilling to do this and she doesn’t have a realistic expectation of results, I will politely tell her that I am not the artist for her.
If I have a client who wants brows in the summer but refuses to accept the aftercare, I have laid out for them, then I will sometimes offer them a small discount (like $50 off) if they prepay their brows now but wait until after Labor Day to get the service. It’s all about mitigating the circumstances to achieve acceptable results.
If they insist on tattooing in the summer and I think they are going to be out in the sun a lot, I give them a travel size baby sunblock and ask them to put it on their brows when outdoors. This is something I GIVE them, because if you simply tell them to use something they will likely “forget” so I give all the aftercare items I want my clients to use.
Helpful tip: I get small lip sunblock sticks (they look like chapstick) and give them out to my clients to keep in their bag, so that if they are going to be outdoors and forget to put suncreen on, they have a handy stick they can use on their PMU. (and again, cross my fingers that they will use it).
Wear your sun block, protect your PMU and most importantly, have a safe and fun summer- I can’t wait to see you all at our 30th Anniversary Convention in Las Vegas in September!