Short answer: on a fresh tattoo, do what your artist told you and ask them before you put anything else on it. On ink that is fully settled, a tallow balm is simply a moisturizer, and it is a good one. We are a small balm maker, not your tattoo artist and not your doctor, so we are not going to tell you our jar is safe on skin that is still open.
The question we get most often is the second one. Someone has had a piece for a few years, the skin over it has gone dry and a bit ashy through the winter, and the colors look flatter than they remember. That is a moisture problem sitting on top of the ink rather than anything happening to the ink itself, and it is exactly what our Unscented Whipped Tallow is for. Two ingredients, grass fed tallow and organic coconut oil, and no fragrance in it at all.
This article is educational and not medical advice. Pure Lifestyle products are cosmetics made to support the look and feel of healthy, comfortable skin. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent eczema, psoriasis, or any medical condition. If you're managing a skin condition, we recommend working with your healthcare provider.
A new tattoo: ask your artist, not us
A tattoo that was done this week is an open wound with pigment in it. Aftercare for it belongs to the person who made it, and every studio has its own instructions about what goes on the skin, how often, and for how long. Follow theirs.
We will not tell you that a cosmetic balm is safe on broken skin, and you should be wary of anyone who does. We hold no testing for that use and we are not going to imply we do. If your artist clears a plain, fragrance free balm once the skin has closed over and the aftercare period is finished, that is their call to make with your piece in front of them. If anything about the site looks wrong, that is a question for a doctor.
What we can tell you factually is what is in the jar, which is rendered grass fed beef tallow whipped with organic coconut oil, and nothing else. No fragrance, no dyes, no additives. That is the whole list, and it is short on purpose so you can show it to somebody and get a straight answer.
Why an older tattoo looks flat when your skin is dry
Tattoo ink does not sit on the surface of your skin. It sits in the dermis, underneath the layer you wash and moisturize every day. So when a piece looks dull, nothing has usually happened to the pigment. What has changed is the window you are looking at it through.
Dry skin has a rougher, flakier surface, and a rough surface scatters light instead of letting it through cleanly. That is why dry skin over a tattoo reads as grey, chalky or washed out, and why the same piece looks sharper in summer than in February. It is also why a thin film of balm can make a difference within a minute of going on: you have smoothed the surface, so you are seeing the ink through less clutter.
Line work in fine black shows this most. Color work with soft gradients shows it second. Big solid blackwork barely shows it at all, which is why two people with the same dry skin can disagree about whether it matters.
What a balm does, and what it does not
A balm made of fat does not put water into your skin. It sits on the surface and slows the water already in there from leaving, and the skin looks and feels softer while that is happening. For skin that is dry from cold, wind, hot showers or too much washing, that is the job you want done.
Here is what it does not do, said plainly, because the tattoo world is full of jars promising otherwise. It does not change the pigment. It does not bring a faded piece back. It does not make ink darker, only the skin over it clearer, and those look similar in a mirror but they are not the same thing. Fading over years comes down to how the piece was put in, where it sits on your body and how much light it has lived through, and none of that is a moisturizer's business. Your artist is the right person to ask about a touch up.
Two ingredients, no fragrance, and a thin film is all a tattoo wants.
Grass fed tallow and organic coconut oil, whipped by hand in Loomis, California. The same jar works on your hands, your shins and everywhere else the winter finds you.
How to put it on settled ink
1. Clean, dry skin, once a day is plenty. After a shower is the easy time to remember. Towel off properly first, because balm over standing water just slides around.
2. Take less than you think. A piece the size of a grain of rice covers a forearm. People use five times what they need on a tattoo because they want to see a shine, and the shine is the part that ends up on your sleeve.
3. Warm it between your fingertips until it turns to oil. Ten seconds. This is the step that stops it sitting in visible white patches on dark ink.
4. Spread it in a thin film, then keep going past the edges of the piece. Treating the tattoo as a separate zone from the skin around it is how you end up with a shiny rectangle. Cover the whole limb or panel.
5. Give it a few minutes before you get dressed. It takes up quickly, but a fresh shirt will take some of it if you rush.
If you would rather use something lighter on a piece on your face or neck, our Pure Glow Face Serum is eight organic plant oils with no essential oils in it, and a few drops go a long way. The balm is the better choice anywhere the skin gets rubbed by clothing.
Scented or unscented over a tattoo?
Start unscented. Not because the scented jars are lesser, they are the same base with essential oils whipped in, but because tattooed skin is skin that has been through something, plenty of people find it stays fussier than the skin next to it for years afterwards, and fragrance is the easiest variable to leave out while you find out how yours behaves.
Once you know a plain balm sits well on you, the scented range is a genuinely nice thing to own, and there is no reason a tattoo rules it out. Our Lemon + Lavender Whipped Tallow is the one most people try first. Patch test it on the inside of your forearm for a couple of days before you put it over a piece you care about, the same as you would with anything new. We went through the whole comparison in how to choose between scented and unscented.
Will it stain my clothes or my sheets?
Any oil based balm can leave a mark on fabric if you put on too much and then get dressed straight away. Tallow is no worse than a body butter and no better.
Three things keep it off your clothes. Use a thin film rather than a layer. Give it four or five minutes to take up. And if you are putting it on a piece that lives under a shirt collar or a waistband, do it at night on top of an old pillowcase rather than in the morning before work. Marks that do land usually come out on a normal warm wash.
When the question is not for us
A tattoo that is raised, itchy, weeping, warm to the touch or flaking in one patch while the rest of you is fine is not a dryness question, and a moisturizer is not the answer to it. Reactions to a specific pigment can also turn up years after the piece was done. Any of that goes to a doctor or a dermatologist, and a balm should wait until they have had a look.
The same goes for a piece that is still inside its aftercare window. Your artist first, then us.
Who is making this
We are Jeremie and Megan. Every batch is rendered and whipped by hand in small runs in Loomis, California, and our name is on the jar. If a jar does not suit you, tell us and we will make it right. That is the whole promise, and it is deliberately short.
If your tattoos are on your hands or forearms, which take the most washing of anywhere on you, the routine in tallow for dry, cracked hands is worth reading alongside this.
Start with the plainest jar we make.
Fragrance free, two ingredients, and a grain of rice covers a forearm. If you would rather have a scent, the rest of the whipped tallow range is built on the same base.
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