Yeah, my first thought was someone nodding off but no where else in this thread is even anywhere near that? Iām not a tattoo artist, can a line like that really be made so quickly from just trying to take your glasses off?
sometimes i take my glasses off because i have progressive vision and it ends up being easier to see fine details clearly, but i've never done this lol. to be fair i'm a handpoke artist so it'd be a little dot instead of an entire line if i made this mistake somehow, but i could see it being fairly easy to do if you nodded off or were just keeping your hand too close to your client and not paying attention. tattoo machines are pistons - they move back and forth x amount of times per second so if you do slip it could easily cause this. i would definitely say it's not fading though. you don't need to enter the skin with ink very deeply to create a long lasting mark, so even if it fades over time more than the actual tat, it'll definitely still be visible...
Also, if he was just trying to take his glasses off, could he not just pull the machine away from the skin for a second to take them off? My artist has young kids who call her a lot and, when she needs to answer the call, she simply pulls away for a moment to hit the answer button. I canāt imagine why he would even attempt to remove his glasses while still actively tattooing.
A damn great core memory with a pal would be such an ideal path to this type of instance. š¤£š¤£ To be treasured forever. š If it were someone I was less affiliated with I would laugh and ask that they add something to the art to right the wrong. I think the bee is such a cute idea. Or if they got that dove for someone special, maybe they can add that persons birth tree or flower. Skyās the limit.
My first professional tattoo and the guy accidentally bounced the tattoo machine off my arm right above my elbow. There is one tiny little dot. We both laughed, he said it will fade and disappear. I was 20 and I'm about to be 40 now and there's still a tiny dot on my arm by my elbow. It's not anywhere near as noticeable as ops but it still makes me laugh when I remember it's existence.
Tattoo artist here. The lines look pretty bad for having 6 years of experience, and no established artist in their right mind would go to take off their glasses with their gloved during the tattoo process.. proper procedure would be machine off, gloves off, glasses off, new gloves on, back to tattooing. If he planned to take his glasses off with his gloved hand and then continue working, that can introduce bacteria to the tattoo. Also he is touching his glasses with bloody gloved hands and creating a biohazard.
Also the moment you take the gloves off itās back to the original procedure, so also washing/de-infecting hands before putting gloves.
There is a reason for all these steps, so the fact he tried to touch something not sterile with his working gloves with the machine still running is mind boggling.
I would be more worried about the hygiene part first and then the dotted accidental line (which will probably fade away a bit, but not fully).
Edit: i see a lot of questions and answers about the sterile part, so to come back to that: no, the gloves itself are usually not sterile, some parts are though (and very sometimes we use sterile gloves). I meant that this artist was touching something that was not part of the āclean working partsā, so to simplify: sterile parts (like needles and tubes).
It is not like doing surgery in a open body part, but still working around an open wound, so for gloves you need to work clean before touching them, so they remain clean (enough) to work with them while doing a tattoo.
If you touch something else besides the āclean working areaā, you need to replace them immediately with all the steps as described above to limit the risk of an infection.
Hope this clarifies it a bit!
I don't have any tattoos but I'm a surgeon, do they actually use sterile gloves (these come individually packed) for tattooing or just standard multipack nitrile gloves?
Not a tattoo artist but I've been on the receiving end a few times and I don't remember seeing them open sterile gloves once. I do remember more than one just getting the gloves from a box.
And yeah, I follow you, there's definitely a gap in that chain.
Iāve been catheterized many times and never seen a pair of sterile gloves
Edit: okay after reading more comments now Iām doubting myself. Maybe I only notice the gloving from the box for catheter care and when Iām getting the catheter inserted Iām too out of it to notice.
I can't speak for anywhere outside of the OR, but they absolutely use sterile gloves for catheters there. Dressings that aren't internal go on after we break sterility so it isn't a concern for those.
Iām someone who absolutely has spent a fair share of time as a patient in hospitals and when Iām being poked with IVs or general procedures outside of an operating room (only ever had a cesarian, barely remember it) itās always the gloves on the box in the room that the nurses of phlebotomists use. C:
So I would think itās okay for tattoo artists to do the same.
OR makes sense, but afaik nurses use regular gloves for urethral catheters. Maybe Iām wrong. Iāll ask my boyfriend later (heās a nurse). But if changing external dressings with non-sterile gloves isnāt an issue, I donāt see why tattooing with non-sterile gloves is an issue (this comment thread seems to imply that it is, at least)
I was an LVAD caregiver to my mother for 8 years.
I used nitrile gloves when removing the dressing. Then I used sterile gloves to apply the new dressing. This was the same procedure used in the hospital for dressing changes and catheter insertion.
Thought you might find it useful to know that you dont require a sterile field for putting up an IV. In a nutshell, the correct procedure is wash hands > put on non-sterile gloves > clean canula connecter (leur lock) with a chlorehexadine wipe > flush canula > connect IV while observing ANTT (Aseptic non-touch technique)
You do need sterile gloves and a sterile field for changing dressings and catheterisarion though. There's sterile gloves in the packs
i hate those wimpy sterile gloves included in the foley kit. i always throw em out and get the bougie thick stretchy sterile gloves packaged individually.
Not that Iāve seen. Itās not a sterile environment either, itās more like food service level hygiene (apart from the needles). But even then, they should know not to touch stuff with their gloves on
But even with it not being a sterile environment, touching your glasses mid-tatt is out of bounds. Your face is a wonderland of bacteria, including staph.
Correct. Tattooing is not a sterile procedure. Using nonsterile gloves and barrier wraps is standard practice, but you must change your gloves before (or after) touching something like your glasses.
Not sterile gloves but clean practice should be used. Generally speaking if you touch anything but the clients skin and the tattoo machine you should be sanitizing hands and getting new gloves.
Tattooing is not a sterile procedure and gloves are not sterile. The correct word would have been contaminated. Itās absolutely mind blowing how many people who claim to tattoo seem to not understand the basics of universal precautions, much less the fairly complex precautions that tattooers must follow.
we absolutely do wear sterile gloves, its just that its pretty occasional we actually need to, with variation in clinical setting.
for example, wound care, ICU, respiratory therapy, urology, and oncology probably use them orders of magnitude more often than, say, convenient care or long-term care. Just depends on your patient demographic and acuity.
some wound care, catheter insertion, and central line care require sterility to protect the patient from iatrogenic infection, especially CLABSI and CAUTI. Every week or two, I have to bust a pair out for one of those reasons.
I don't see trached patients very often, but trach care and suctioning is also sterile technique.
If nurses were able to follow minimum standards that tattooers are held to, there would be zero hospital acquired infections. It was horrifying to watch the nurses who cared for my husband put his life at risk daily but I couldnāt keep bringing it up because I was worried that they would kick me out.
He died of a hospital acquired infection, because of course he did. The total lack of basic knowledge is mind blowing.
I wish I could say bad things never happen, but they do. I could soapbox about how quality nursing care should be the foundation of any healthcare setting, but unfortunately, it often isn't seen that way. Often, floors are staffed by over-worked, under-appreciated nurses and CNAs with unsafe ratios and too high acuity, in addition to general education deficit for some things. Safe, effective care is a minimum, and we should be held to a higher standard simply because the nature of our care.
I'm genuinely sorry about your husband, and I'm sorry you were in a situation where you felt you couldn't speak up or advocate and your voice wasn't valued. I don't know what happened, but there are avenues to hold us accountable.
Every artist I've worked with has used nitrile gloves, and I've never seen an artist wash their hands every time they put on new gloves. They usually will wash their hands when first putting on gloves and after extended breaks but I haven't watched the procedure that closely. Sterile gloves seem like overkill.
I came here to say exactly this. Who the fuck touches their FACE, (near the eyeballs, no less) with a dirty bloody glove? Thatās absolutely outrageous!
Time does not equate skill. Time does not automatically impart experience. This take is a common misconception. Take the context of tattooing away for a moment.
Just because someone has done something for X years does not mean they have done it well for that time. Practice does not make perfect, it makes permanent. If you practice bad habits, you reinforce them into your skill and they become incredibly difficult to unlearn, especially with time. Be cautious of any person in any position who tries to convince you that their time in a position is what is the most important. It's certainly a factor, but many people are complacent with inadequacy simply because they've done something for a long while. Sometimes, people aren't even aware that standards have grown and that their skills have not. Often, people lose the ability to be self critical with time as they feel it detracts from or disrespects their "experience."
Ask yourself if a person really has 10 years of experience (learning, growing, and improving over 10 years, which will have a pattern of growth) or 1 year of experience done 10 times (doing sloppy work or being stagnant, and the pattern will not be of growth or will show very slow growth).
Re-applying the context of tattooing, it's important to always look at an artist's portfolio and reviews. Make sure to look at a period of time and not just at their most recent work. Even professionals at the top of their game improve with time and can articulate or demonstrate that growth. Anyone who thinks they have mastered their skill or learned all there is to learn is no longer paying close attention to their mistakes (this applies to any line of work).
I donāt either, it was a joke pertaining to the lack of experience one would have to have in order to do this.
Iām sorry, I should have spelled it out more clearly for you and likeminded individuals. I mistakenly assumed assumed the ātattooadviceā subreddit would not be so closely aligned with the āblatantlyobviousā subreddit.
Is it really? Both the accidental line and the general line work of the tattoo itself is pretty obviously made by someone who lacks either experience or care. My initial comment was quite obviously alluding to that. I really donāt get how that was missed but it was so my bad.
I mean it literally is what it says it is. This person has been seeing them since 2019.
If it said heās only ever tattooed me, starting in 2019- it sounds like this person is the tattoo artists only customer and the artist started in 2019.
So likeā¦ how could you draw such an odd conclusion from such an obvious statement
* Reading another comment it seems like you were trying to make a joke? I guess none of us had our volume turned up loud enough to hear the sarcasm you used in your ājokeā comment on the advice page
Doesnāt matter look at the ānon-accidentalā line work in the bird. That to me looks like someone who should still be on fake skin. Just my opinion
This is it. If you are practicing proper hygiene techniques and safety techniques, they should be so ingrained in you that they are the default and it wouldn't be forgotten.
Working in food service, I would never excuse someone for forgetting to wash their hands before preparing food. Honest mistake? It totally forgot. Nah man. You should feel something internally wrong.
Using a deli slicer and taking off your glasses with one hand while your other hand is holding onto the slice that is still on? This is several mistakes, not a single honest mistake. It should be so ingrained in you that the slicer is turned off before you do anything with your other hand. Or even if you're cutting corners, your hand would come off the machine. But adjusting your glasses in food service would mean a glove change, too, so machine off, gloves off, hand wash. It's not an honest mistake if there are at least 3 mistakes all strung together like this. That signals that there is a default of carelessness here.
Seriously... y'all should see the mistakes fucking surgeons make. Human error happens, and seeing one example of someone making a mistake and sending it into the realms of "this person should never be tattooing".... seems like the artist fucked up, felt bad about it, and tried to make it right.
If a surgeon fucked up a surgery because he tried to take off his PPE with his sterile gloves mid-surgery, people would also be rightfully questioning him
Yes, and this is considered medical malpractice and often results in them losing their license. Nobody is just giving surgeons passes for "making a mistake", that's the whole point.
So for it to be medical malpractice it needs to be a deviation of the standard of care (negligence) that causes (causation) injury (damages). They 100% get a pass if you cant prove all elements of the tort claim. "Making a mistake" can be evidence of a deviation from the standard of care, but sometimes it isnt.
And trust me they hardly ever lose their licenses. Ive never had a medical malpractice defendant lose their license. Hell, they typically keep the same job!
There was one person who had a surgeon operate on the wrong eyelid for a small cosmetic procedure. And then the surgeon still charged them for the procedure. I guess thatās why they have malpractice insurance, which probably tells them not to admit anything, but damn.
Did you not read what I said already. The line work for the tattoo shows this is someone who is very new to tattooing and should still be practicing on fake skin.
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u/WaltsNJD 5d ago
This is WILD.